Agenda of Policy and Regulatory Committee

Attachment 1

Position Paper on cats 2019.

Position Paper concerning cats in Lower Hutt 2019.

Introduction

Hutt City Council when approving in December the Control of Animals Bylaw 2018 resolved:

“… (ii) acknowledges that cats are an issue in the city, and requests officers to provide a report to the Policy and Regulatory Committee concerning options available to Council in relation to the control of cats, including whether a specific bylaw relating to the control of cats in the city is required, given there is an existing issue;…”

This Position Paper is divided into two sections. The first section outlines what the current situation is with respect to the management of cats. The second section outlines options available to Council in relation to the management and control of cats and whether a specific bylaw relating to the control of cats is required.

Section One: The current situation.

Cats are currently managed by the general conditions of the Hutt City Council Control of Animals Bylaw 2018, which states:

2.1 All animals shall be kept in a manner that is not, or is not likely to become, a nuisance, dangerous, offensive, or injurious to health.

2.2 All animals shall be kept in a manner that ensures they have adequate physical well-being through acceptable nutrition, environmental, health and behavioural stimulus, and adequate mental well-being.

2.3 All domestic animals, other than domestic cats, found at large and not within their owner's property may be seized and impounded by an authorised officer.

2.4 The Council may sell, re-home or otherwise dispose of any animal seized and impounded that has not been claimed or returned within 7 days after it was seized and impounded.

Stock and Roaming Animals Complaints- 1 June 2017 to 31 May 2018

	Urban and Rural
Goats	7
Sheep	21
Horses / Pony	4
Deer (from bush)	6
Cows / Bull	4
Lama	1
Pig	1
Rabbits	1
Roosters	7
Cats	12
Chickens	8
Peacocks / Peahen (from same property?)	4
TOTAL	76

Reports of Stray /Feral Cats made to Animal Services in the last six years:

2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Total

2 3 4 7 12 8 36

Of the 36 complaints, 21 requested a cage/trap to capture a single stray or feral cat. Based on these statistics and the current arrangements in place Officers do not consider that stray/Feral cats are an issue in the city.

Animal Welfare Act

The Animal Welfare Act 1999(the Act), prescribes that one has to become an inspector or auxiliary officer to undertake the functions of an approved organisation as defined in the Act. To undertake those functions the criteria requires that the organisation has to undertake a full range of welfare activities. Hutt City Council does not have the ability to undertake the functions required to be approved or have a welfare plan, in respect to cats.

There has been a recent ruling by the Crown that Councils could face a conflict of interest if they were to have the functions of an approved organisation and Auckland Council’s recent application to become an approved organisation with respect to cats, under the Act was declined. The SPCA is an approved organisation under the Act.

SPCA

SPCA will take in kittens, assess them for re homing, desex, microchip and sell them.

For stray unwanted cats they will work with the finder, desex the cat and microchip, if the finder is willing to pay and keep the cat. If not then they offer the finder a “stray pack” which has a paper collar and instructions on how to manage the cat over the next 7-10 days. This encourages the finder to not feed the cat to encourage it to go home and for the finder to put up flyers in the local neighbourhood. If the cat stays and after ten days the finder can then take the cat back to the SPCA and they will put the Cat on the stray list and advertise to sell the cat via Pets on the Net. They generally only have 5-25cats for sale at any one time for the whole region.

SPCA do have a caravan that is funded through Grants or Trusts that is fully kitted out to desex cats and dogs. Porirua City has used this caravan over the last 10 years operating for 2 months. The cost for this 2 month period is fully sponsored by the Mana Trust. Porirua has the highest number of desexed dogs in the region. Owners are asked for a Koha and that money is used to keep the caravan on site longer.

Hutt City had the caravan in 2017 and desexed approx. 108 dogs and 219 cats, also microchipped approx. 60% of the dogs and cats. This was offered to dog and cat owners that were community service card holders and owners of menacing and dangerous dogs which are required to be desexed.

SPCA facilitate a programme called Snip n Chip, aka desexing and microchipping, which is provided via local vets at a very subsidised level (still significantly dearer than the caravan).

Kitten Inn

Has been operating for 23 years, has 156 volunteers, 91 foster carers, and 26,000 facebook subscribers. Costs $25,000 per month to run and rehomes 1500-1800 kitten/cats purr year.

On average Susan Mc Nair (Kitten Inn) puts up 40-53 Kitten/cats per week on face book for adoption.

Kittens 7-10 weeks $200 desexed at 1 kg and microchipped

10 weeks-4 months $150 desexed and microchipped

Cats $20 desexed and microchipped

Kitten Inn is a charitable trust and uses a Vet in Masterton to desex their cats.

Section Two: Options to manage and control cats.

Introduction

It is important to recognise the intrinsic value of cats and their value to people, the community and to New Zealand society. It is also important to recognise the need to balance the needs of cats, cat owners and cat carers with the potentially negative impacts of cats on communities, other species and on ecosystems. There is a need to humanely manage cats in Hutt City in a way that protects their welfare and our unique environment. Section Two of this Paper outlines options around the management and control of cats and whether a bylaw is needed.

Types of cats

The N.Z National Cat Management Strategy Discussion Paper 2017 noted that the following cat population categories should be used to provide the basis for a management framework:

· Feral cats: these cats are unowned, unsocialised, and have no relationship with or dependence on humans.

· Domestic cats:

Companion (owned) cats: these cats are considered to be owned by a specific person, are sociable, and are directly dependent on humans.

· Stray cats: these cats are unowned, of varying sociability, have varying interactions with humans and dependence on humans. This category is subdivided into:

o Socialised stray cats (managed and unmanaged)

o Unsocialised stray cats (managed and unmanaged)

Cat population

There is no reliable source or database available that can indicate what the current number of cats in Lower Hutt is. Officers think – as a very rough guess – that 85% of the cat population are domestic cats. The remaining 15% of the cat population probably comprise feral and stray cats.

Given the majority are Domestic cats the controls outlined below are only applicable to Domestic cats.

Responsible cat owner

There are some potential options that can be used to manage domestic cats. Micro chipping and de-sexing of cats are currently considered part of being a responsible pet owner.

SPCA heartily support desexing and microchipping of Cats and Dogs. The N.Z. Companion Animal Council Inc. and the N.Z. Veterinary Association also support these management practices.

Microchip cats

A microchip is a permanent method of identification. They are reliable, unlike cat collars, which can come off. The chip is the same size as a grain of rice and is inserted under the skin by a vet by injection. Cats tolerate the procedure well. Each chip has a unique identification code which can be read by an electronic scanner.

Following the Christchurch earthquakes, over 80% of microchipped cats were quickly reunited with their owners after the quake, compared with only 15% of non-microchipped cats.

De-sexing cats

A female cat can start reproducing from the age of 5 months and can have up to four litters of up to six kittens every year. Introducing de-sexing for cats the expectation is the reduction of unwanted cats and kittens.

Introduction of wide-spread pre-pubertal desexing of cats will reduce the number of litters of kittens produced before cats are desexed and improve the effectiveness of other desexing initiatives.

Limiting number of cats per property.

This is another option Council could establish. The number of cats per property could be set at three per property.

The Palmerston North City Council Animal and Bees Bylaw 2018 has set the number of cats at three per property. This approach is also supported by the Manager of Kitten Inn. The HCC Dog Control Bylaw has set the number of dogs at three per property.

Property owners could apply to Council to have a licence to have more than three cats, with good reason e.g. a breeder of cats, keeping cats as a business, subject to any conditions specified by Council.

Having cats inside or contained at night.

Cats are highly efficient killers – one study has suggested they’re a bigger threat to birds, skinks, geckos and weta in cities than even rats and mice – and there is also plenty of them.

Wayne Linklater and others have recently published a paper ‘Prioritizing cat-owner behaviours for a campaign to reduce wildlife depredation’. They surveyed veterinarians and cat owners to prioritize a list of cat management behaviours’ by visiting 10 veterinary clinics in Wellington, Palmerston North and Dunedin. Cat-owner behaviours were ranked by their (a) likelihood of implementation and (b) current adoption rate by cat owners, (c) perceived effectiveness at reducing predation on wildlife, and (d) veterinarians’ opinions about their impact on cat welfare. Their research found that almost 30% of cat owners bring their cat inside at night but less than 1% confined their cat inside or to their property 24hr a day. Bringing cats in at night, from before dusk until dawn, was revealed to be the behaviour most suited to a campaign to reduce cats’ hunting.

This paper’s conclusion was:

“…By designing and implementing an advocacy campaign that focuses, first, on a behaviour acceptable to cat owners (i.e. bringing cats inside at night in New Zealand) over time, there could be a more substantial shift in behaviour with greater conservation benefit. Although globally objectives may differ, we strongly suggest that engaging with cat-owners in this way may enable substantial change. Incremental changes through behaviour prioritization may deliver longer-term and sustained reductions in the impact of domestic cats on native wildlife while not exacerbating conflicts and risks of non-compliance…”

The paper indicates that effective management of stray and companion cats requires an integrated, consistent and long-term approach focusing on non-lethal cat management methods; there is also a need for effective and humane cat management measures that are acceptable to the community. Changing community attitudes, beliefs and behaviours is vital to any future management of cat populations.

Given the above Council may wish to develop an education programme that focuses on increasing public understanding of the need for cat management and acceptance of critical cat management measures. Such an education programme could encourage and reinforce responsible ownership by:

· Increasing acceptance and implementation of cat containment, especially in sensitive wildlife areas. Measures to ensure suitably enriched containment environments for cats must be included to safeguard cat health and welfare.

· Increasing the use of effective anti-predation devices for cats with outdoor access e.g. bell on a cats neck.

· Promote microchipping and physical identification.

· Promote pre-pubertal desexing of cats.

If Council agreed to undertake an education programme as outlined above, what sort of resources would be needed? Attached to this paper is a ‘snip’n’chip pamphlet which the SPCA use to outline what being a responsible cat ownership involves. Working in partnership with the SPCA Council could produce an appropriate ‘snip’n’chip pamphlet Officers could use to help educate residents in Lower Hutt about being responsible cat owners. The Council Comms team could also be used to promote responsible cat management practices. Their main channel options for such a public information programme are:

· Media release

· Social media – HCC Facebook page and Neighbourly

· Editorial on Hutt at Heart, council’s news website

· Advertorial in Hutt News – about $1600 for a half page

· Dedicated HCC web page

· Digital noticeboards in 10 HCC locations, including libraries, community hubs and public pools

Only cost associated with these channels would be for the Hutt News advertorial space.

This approach could be reviewed in a few years’ time to determine if it’s being effective.

Is a bylaw required?

Clause (ii) above has asked officers to advise whether a specific bylaw relating to the control of cats in the city is required. Below are two examples of what Palmerston North and Wellington City Councils have done.

Palmerston North City Council

Part 4 Section 8 Palmerston North City Council Animals and Bees Bylaw 2018, shows how a series of controls could be established to promote responsible cat ownership.

“… 8. CATS ON PREMISES

8.1 No person may keep more than three cats per dwelling on any private land in the urban area without a permit issued under this Bylaw.

8.2 If the Council issues a permit to a person to keep more than three cats under clause 8.1 then the permit holder must comply with the conditions of that permit.

8.3 No cats kept for breeding purposes shall be housed within 1.8 metres of the boundary of any adjoining property in the urban area unless the housing is within a dwelling house.

8.4 The restrictions of clauses 8.1 and 8.3 shall not apply to kittens below the age of three months.

8.5 Nothing in clause 8.1 applies to the SPCA or other animal shelter or a lawfully established veterinary clinic or cattery.

8.6 Nothing in clause 8 precludes the need for a resource consent under the District Plan.

8.7 Every person who keeps cats must ensure:

a. Cats over six months of age are microchipped and registered with the New Zealand Companion Animals Register, or other Council approved microchip registry.

b. Cats over six months are desexed (unless kept for breeding purposes and are registered with a nationally recognised cat breeders’ body including New Zealand Cat Fancy Ltd. and Catz Inc.).

8.8 Clause 8.7 applies to all cats born after 1 July 2018…”

How does PNCC enforce these cat management controls? At this stage PNCC will write to cat owners reminding them of their obligations if they become aware of a cat not microchipped and/or de-sexed. If such an approach doesn’t result in the outcomes expected PNCC may review their approach.

Wellington City Council

Part 2, Cause 4 of The Wellington Consolidated Bylaw 2008 states:

“…4. Cats

The bylaw on microchipping cats was passed at the Environment Committee on 4 August 2016. The bylaw will come into place in early 2018, giving owners 18 months to meet the new requirement for cats to be microchipped.

4.1 All domestic cats over the age of 12 weeks must be microchipped and the cat's microchip registered with New Zealand Companion Animal Register…”

The WCC only have microchipping in their bylaw. While other cat management controls were considered the public feedback indicated their community only wanted cats to be microchipped. So in response to that feedback the bylaw outlined above was adopted by WCC. They have employed an Animal Officer in an educational role. They think that voluntary compliance was more likely to have better outcomes than rules that lead to infringements.

Cats at night

Having cats inside or contained at night, based on the information outlined above, indicates that the adoption of a non-regulatory approach could be the best option. Raising the profile, via an education programme, around the need to better protect the local wildlife and improve the conservation benefits by encouraging cat owners to keep their cats inside at night is an option Council may wish to pursue.

_________________________________________________________________________________

28 15 July 2019

Policy and Regulatory Committee

12 April 2019

File: (19/464)

Report no: PRC2019/3/3

Activity 12 Review - Regulatory Services

Purpose of Report

1. The purpose of this report is to outline the results of a review of the Environmental Management activity. Three divisions of Council within the City Transformation Group contribute to the work in Activity 12 – Environmental Management, being Environmental Consents, Regulatory Services and Environmental Policy. This report covers the work of the Regulatory Services Division and as such is one of three reports on Activity 12. The Environmental Policy Division will report to the District Plan Subcommittee.

Recommendation

That the Committee:

(i) notes the information contained in this report;

(ii) notes that this review also meets the intent of section 17A of the Local Government Act 2002; and

(iii) notes that reasonably practicable options for the governance, funding and delivery of this Activity, as outlined in section 37 of the report, are being considered by officers and will be reported to Council in due course.

Background

2. Activity reports provide regular information about Council activities, so that activities can be analysed and their future direction considered. They also address the requirements of section 17A of the Local Government Act 2002 (LGA) that regular reviews be undertaken of the cost-effectiveness of current arrangements for meeting the needs of communities for good-quality local infrastructure, local public services, and performance of regulatory functions. This report covers that part of Activity 12 relating to the Regulatory Services Division and is part of a series of rolling reviews for all Council activities.

3. The Divisional Manager also manages Emergency Management for Hutt City and that is covered in the Activity 13 review done in the last reporting cycle.

High-level description of Activity

4. The Regulatory Services Division (35 staff) comprises of three teams; being the Animal Services team (16 staff), the Trade Waste team (five staff), the Parking Services team (12 staff), and the Divisional Manager and Executive Assistant.

5. Regulatory Services currently manages shared services for Upper Hutt City Council (UHCC) in the area of trade waste, and long-term dog boarding. We are also contracted to manage the animal service functions and impounding service for Wellington City Council (WCC). We contract out after hours parking and animal service functions to Recon and Valley Animal Services respectively.

6. The activity is fundamental to achieving a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. It is also a legal requirement for the Hutt City Council.

7. The Animal Services team is responsible for the monitoring and enforcement of regulations under the Dog Control Act so that residents are safe, annoyance factors are minimised, and the welfare of animals is protected. The team also provides a variety of services to dog owners in the district.

8. The Animal Services team completes the following tasks to achieve this:

· Manages dog registration for approximately 21,000 dogs within Lower Hutt and Wellington cities.

· Responds to approximately 7000 requests for services per annum from residents in Lower Hutt and Wellington cities, including:

§ barking dogs – 30 percent, or 2100/year

§ challenging/threatening and uncontrolled dogs – 32 percent, or 2240/year

§ stray pickups – 20 percent, or 1400/year

§ attacks on other animals – seven percent, or 490/year

§ attacks on people – five percent, or 350/year

§ dogs and stock at large – one percent, or 70/year

§ welfare of animals – two percent, or 140/year

§ dog adoptions and dog education – three percent or 210/year.

· Engaged in ‘be safe around animals’¸ which involves going to 120 primary schools and community dog obedience training.

· Manage the dog pounds at Meachen Street and Moa Point.

· Manage the after-hours contract for dog pick-ups and serious attacks.

· Manages long-term boarding of dogs for Upper Hutt City Council.

9. The Trade Waste team exists to protect public health in areas of sewerage, storm water and chemical hazards.

10. The Trade Waste team completes the following tasks to achieve this:

· Manages the registration and audit of 650 known trade waste discharges to the sewage system in both Hutt and Upper Hutt City Councils.

· Manages overland storm water and sewer inspections which are a primary role of local government, however, Hutt City Council and the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) manage discharges to ground within the City, working closely together to achieve community outcomes efficiently and effectively. Examples of this include coordinated pollution response where Hutt City Council is the only council to have been delegated powers from a regional council to investigate and bring prosecutions for illegal discharges to ground.

· Currently contracting to Porirua for commercial discharges.

11. The Parking Services team exists to ensure the safety and convenience of residents parking in and around Lower Hutt is maintained.

12. The Parking Services team completes the following tasks to achieve this:

· Manages the compliance role for stationary vehicles within Lower Hutt. This includes requests for service from the public involving road safety, inconvenience and nuisance problems. The total number of infringements issued is around 38,000 per year.

· Safety around schools is a focus along with safety for the residents of Lower Hutt.

Reason for the review

13. This review is required because three years have passed since this Activity was last reviewed in February 2016.

Rationale for service provision

14. The following table sets out how the Regulatory Services division supports the following community outcomes:

Community outcome	How Regulatory Services contributes
A safe community	Responsible for the administration and operation of: trade waste, hazardous substances, contamination to ground and safety around dogs
A strong diverse economy	Liaison with developers during building and resource consents with regard to trade waste and hazardous substances
Healthy people	Protection of people from noise (dogs, residential and commercial)
A healthy natural environment	Protection of the environment from liquid waste and hazardous substances

15. Regulatory Services maintains the integrity of its compliance processes through applying the relevant legislation. The following are the main acts and bylaws:

· Dog Control Act

· Impounding Act

· Resource Management Act

· Hutt City Council Bylaws

· Hutt Valley Trade Waste Bylaw

· Local Government Act

· Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act

· Land Transport Act.

16. Animal Services also helps to satisfy the objective for the contribution to growth and development, in particular, actions facilitating free educational programmes for adults and children.

17. The team has a goal of getting to all 121 primary schools in the Lower Hutt and Wellington city areas over three years with a Safety Around Dogs programme, along with 20-25 community-based programmes per year.

18. These programmes are for work groups such as NZ Police, postal workers, and Nurse Maud, where they enter private property and dogs are present; plus training sessions for groups on dog obedience and responsible dog ownership.

Present arrangements for governance, funding and service delivery

Activity	HCC governance funding and delivery	HCC or shared governance and funding with delivery by another party	Future options
Regulatory Services	This is Animal Services, Trade Waste and Parking Services, this is status quo.	Contract out – after-hours animal services are provided under contract. After-hours Parking Services Contract in – animal services for Wellington city. Trade waste and dog boarding services for Upper Hutt provided under contract. This will be further reported through the General Manager’s report.	Full shared services model for Animal Services, with Upper Hutt, Wellington and Porirua City.

Activity

HCC
governance funding and delivery

HCC
or shared governance and funding with delivery by another party

Future options

Regulatory Services

This is Animal Services, Trade Waste and Parking Services, this is status quo.

Contract out – after-hours animal services are provided under contract.

After-hours Parking Services

Contract in – animal services for Wellington city.

Trade waste and dog boarding services for Upper Hutt provided under contract.

This will be further reported through the General Manager’s report.

Full shared services model for Animal Services, with Upper Hutt, Wellington and Porirua City.

Current and future risks likely to have a significant impact on this activity

Strengths

Weaknesses

· Very experienced staff

· First council to have registering new dogs on line, fillable forms for most applications and most payments on-line.

· First council to introduce electronic dog tags, to re-unite owners to dogs

· Excellent working relationships between councils across the Wellington region and GWRC.

· As hazardous substances and new organism emergencies require specialist training, specified by the Act and no agencies have personnel that are fully trained

· Staff remuneration appears low in some regulatory areas – especially considering the value these staff create for the Council.

Opportunities

Threats

· On-going co-operation with councils across the Wellington region

· Opportunities and efficiencies that come from the contract with Wellington Animal Services

· In discussion with Wellington Water Ltd about working in Porirua and Wellington on trade waste inflow work.

· Significant income is generated from WCC Animal Services’ contract, we need to spread this risk

· Safety of staff in dangerous situations, (aggressive dogs, people and hazardous substances).

19. The following table sets out issues of which officers are aware and which Council will need to work on over the next few years:

	Issue	Undertaken and/or proposed action
Trade Waste	The formal training and supervision of hazardous substances staff has not been available to TA staff for at least four years (that is, we can’t get new qualified staff)	Requested WorkSafe to run the courses Kept our Test Certificates for Approved Handlers HSNO Act up to date
Animal service facilities	The existing facility has capacity to take in more dogs Extent to which we want to grow services: eg education, community dog training, and day boarding into the future	Investigating doing UHCC animal services or take in more boarding dogs In Business Plan
Staff safety	Staff have been physically assaulted and verbally abused	Self-defence training Panic alarms Tracking devices Video cameras
Shared services for animal services	Animal services for Wellington and Lower Hutt progressing well. We have improved our efficiency through picking up better ways to manage a number of processes	Participate in regional shared services project

Current performance against KPIs compared to historical and peer benchmarks

Activity 12 – Environmental Management – Regulatory Services
Non-financial performance measures

Status
ü or û

Measure

Target 2019-20

To date

Comment

(how well you are doing now and any initiatives to ensure meet target)

Customer satisfaction

Animal Services

Parking

85%

75%

92%

84%

Comparisons

85%

No other comparison

Dog attacks responded to in 30 minutes

Dog complaints attended to in 24 hours

Dog shelter open six days/wk

95%

300 days/year

97%

99%

100%

Trends for Dog activity 2015-2018 Hutt City Council only

Summary	2015/16	2016/17	2017/18
Barking dogs	901	908	891
Uncontrolled/roaming dogs	1396	1091	916
Dogs attacking people	85	98	72
Dogs attacking animals	110	107	113
Infringements	177	187	59
Registered dogs	9300	9488	9652

20. While dog numbers continue to increase, all areas of anti-social behaviour has continued to decrease. We attribute most of this to community and school education on safety around dogs. Also the positive profile the Animal Services team has in the community, that is, people willing to cooperate and help staff.

21. The increased use of technology to assist in the re-uniting of lost or roaming dogs via an electronic dog tag and Doggone application on your phone. The service will be offered to dog owners through the 2019/2020 dog registration process.

Total operating and capital cost of the service over the last three years

Natural Acct	Nat Acct Description	16/17 Actual	17/18 Actual	18/19 Actual	18/19 Budget	19/20 Draft Budget
1INC	User Charges	-1,023,325	-1,003,580	-948,127	-1,032,000
1ORE	Other Revenue	-863,514	-907,367	-736,782	-932,000	-950,640
2EMP	Employee Costs	2,111,101	2,357,888	1,925,322	2,374,566	2,452,018
4SUP	Support Costs	1,383,200	1,369,442	1,350,379	1,353,709	1,331,620
5OPE	Operating Costs	863,552	940,944	761,087	995,368	976,398
7DEP	Depreciation	19,607	20,353	6,227	8,607	3,103
	TOTAL OPERATING	2,109,761	2,098,224	1,877,948	2,156,106	2,114,235

Funding ratio

22. The policy for funding ratio was reviewed on 5 November 2014 and was set at medium (40-60%) for Trade Waste. Animal Service’s was revised to 70-80%.

Actual ratio achieved

Trade Waste target 40-60% Actual 18/19 56%
Animal Services combined 70-80% Actual 18/19 86%

Implications of changes to budget allocations or level of service provision – either a requirement for a 10% reduction or 10% increase

23. Enforcement decisions have implications for many people. Residents and businesses have the right to expect Council to maintain the integrity of its compliance processes and apply the relevant legislation. Similar approaches to similar circumstances will be undertaken, but consistency does not mean uniformity.

24. The diagram below represents a need to take into account the often unique and special circumstances of each case, the level of harm or degree of non-compliance, and any history of previous breaches.

High risk

Low risk

High cost

High personal contact

Phones

On-line payments

Web info

Low cost

Targeted interventions

Infringements

Warnings

Web info

Examples

Hazardous sites

Dangerous dogs

Inspections

Education programmes

Letters

On-line

25. Future demand is determined by how safe you want people to feel while striking a balance between risk to the community and over rgulation. How safe a person feels in any given community during the day and at night is made up of many factors. Increasing the service will lower the risk which we have done by getting the contracts with WCC and UHCC which has brought us more money and experience and hence lowered the risk. If we lower the service, the risk rises and the cost of the service rises.

Comparison of any significant fees or charges against peers

26. Animal Services fee comparison:

Council	Hutt City	Wellington	Porirua	Upper Hutt
Entire dog	$135.00	$172.50	$177.50	$117.00
Not registered by 1 August	$185.00	$257.50	$224.00	$175.00
Responsible dog owner	$75.00	$61.50	$94.00	$80.00
Neutered	$100.00	$125.00	$126.00	$105.00
Impound fee	$100.00	$106.00	$200.00	$85.00

Current highlights or issues of significance to Council

Animal Services

27. Completed seven successful years of the Animal Services contract for Wellington. The contract has been renewed and is to run through to 2023.

28. Secured the lease at Moa Point.

29. Dog Control Bylaw reviewed and adopted for a further 10 years.

30. The Animal Services team has been doing a lot more community engagement with pop up services, public presentations, parades, Dogs in Togs, fairs and education talks in libraries and schools.

31. Introduction of the electronic dog tag (Doggone) to re-unite lost dogs with their owners.

Trade Waste Services

32. Council has collaborated with Wellington City Council to write the Wellington Trade Waste Bylaw which has been renewed for 10 years.

33. The Trade Waste team is currently contracted to Porirua City Council to carry out an audit of commercial properties for commercial discharge.

34. Discharge levels of Trade Waste have risen to the same levels as peak flows of the 1970s with the introduction of four boutique breweries.

Parking Services

35. Council has a very proactive programme around safety around the school gate and safety related infringements.

36. The introduction of body worn cameras has reduced the incidents of abuse and threatening behaviour toward the wardens by 90% since their introduction.

Reasonably practical options for the governance, funding and delivery of this activity

37. At present we are contracting services through Wellington Water Ltd for inflow work in Upper Hutt, Wellington and Porirua. This is a growing business opportunity and will be reported back through the appropriate Committee.

Appendices

There are no appendices for this report.

Author: Geoff Stuart

Divisional Manager, Regulatory Services and Emergency Management

Approved By: Helen Oram

Acting General Manager, City Transformation

44 15 July 2019

Policy and Regulatory Committee

20 June 2019

File: (19/826)

Report no: PRC2019/3/135

Activity 12 Review - Environmental Consents

Purpose of Report

1. The purpose of this report is to outline the results of a review of the Environmental Consents division and the current performance in achieving those outputs. This information is provided to improve decision making by Council on the future direction of the activity.

Recommendations

That the Committee:

(i) notes the information contained in this report;

(ii) notes that this review also meets the intent of section 17A of the Local Government Act 2002; and

(iii) notes that reasonably practicable options for the governance, funding and delivery of this Activity, as outlined in section 44 of the report, are being considered by officers and will be reported to Council in due course.

Background

2. Activity Reports provide regular information about Council activities, so that activities can be analysed and their future direction considered. They also address the requirements of section 17A of the Local Government Act 2002 (LGA) that regular reviews be undertaken of the cost-effectiveness of current arrangements for meeting the needs of communities for good-quality local infrastructure, local public services, and performance of regulatory functions.

High-level description of Activity

3. The Environmental Consents division comprises five teams; being the Building Team, the Building Quality Assurance Team including an Eco Design Advisor, an Environmental Support Team, an Environmental Health Team and the Resource Consents Team; which includes three Land Information Memoranda (LIM) officers and an Executive Assistant to the Divisional Manager.

4. The Resource Consents Team completes the following outputs:

· Process around 300 resource consents per year (land use and subdivision)

· Monitor all resource consents for compliance with consent conditions and takes action where necessary

· Process other applications under the RMA (e.g. Certificates of Compliance, Certificates of Existing Use, etc) and under the LGA (e.g. Right of Way applications)

· Represent Council at the Environment Court, High Court, Court of Appeal and District Court

· Respond to resource management complaints and take legal action where necessary

· Check all building consent applications for compliance with the District Plan and comment as necessary

· Contribute to Council submissions on planning related documents

· Undertake education with both internal and external stakeholders.

· Process and approve LIM reports in accordance with LGOIMA. The demand for LIM’s tends to fluctuate with the rise and fall of the property market. We process around 1,100 Land Information Memoranda per year.

5. The Building Team and Building Quality Assurance Team complete the following outputs:

· Maintenance of the Building Consent Authority (which is accredited by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment bi-annually), including internal audits on both officers work and documentation used, competency testing of officers, etc.

· Process around 1,600 building consents per year.

· Complete inspections on these developments for compliance with approved documentation.

· Issue Code Compliance Certificates for developments.

· Process and register 1600 Building Warrants of Fitness and aim to undertake audits of approximately 20% of these annually.

· Maintain a register of swimming pools and ensure that the pools are inspected every three years to determine whether the pool barriers comply with s162C of the Building Act 2004 (currently approximately 650 pool registered).

· Undertake a review and assessment of buildings within the city in accordance with the profiling tool that MBIE has developed to identify potentially earthquake prone buildings. Priority buildings need to be identified by 31 December 2019 and other buildings need to be identified by 30 June 2022.

· Continue to monitor buildings with current earthquake-prone building notices and work with owners towards remediating their buildings.

· Assist with post disaster response and recovery in accordance with our responsibilities set out in the Building Act. This may include issuing dangerous building notices, and/or executing a warrant to undertake urgent building work to mitigate safety risks.

· Undertake enforcement action including prosecution for breaches of the Building Act and related regulations.

· The Eco Design Advisor (EDA) undertakes an average of six home consultations a week - a mix of new builds and existing dwellings, and conducts workshops and talks at libraries, schools, community houses and hubs. Visits and presentations serve to raise awareness of house performance and energy efficiency for health, sustainability and increased well-being in the community. Advice covers occupant behaviour, building improvement and appropriate technologies. Hutt City's EDA is also active in organising the annual EDA conference, a housing group working to improve housing on a regional basis and other groups working to improve housing standards nationwide.

· Represent Council on weathertight homes claims, building litigation claims and enforcement cases in the district court.

· Contribute to Council submissions on building related documents. This may involve coordinating a joint response in conjunction with neighbouring Councils.

· Undertake education with internal and external stakeholders on building compliance related matters.

6. The Environmental Support Team completes the following outputs:

· Answer around 6,600 – 7,000 public enquires over the front counter per year for a variety of council functions associated with development.

· Deal with property requests via email, phone and face to face.

· Complete the back office administration for the division, including issuing consents, invoicing, reconciliation and creating credit notes where required.

· Responsible for document control and management across the division. This involves the maintenance of all of our documents, reporting on monthly performance statistics and managing our website information.

· Update Ministry for Primary Industries database with food verification results and information.

7. The Environmental Health Team completes the following outputs:

· Undertake food verifications for premises that sell or handle food.

· Manage liquor licensing by ensuring premises that serve alcohol are appropriately managed in accordance with the regulations. This includes bars, nightclubs, and various types of sports clubs.

· Other types of premises that require licensing include hairdressers, offensive trades, amusement devices, mortuaries and tattoo parlours.

· This team is also responsible for dealing with noise, smoke and litter complaints; we use a subcontractor to deal with afterhours noise complaints and recently signed a contract for the next 12 months.

8. The Environmental Consents Division currently manages shared services for Upper Hutt City Council (UHCC) in the Environmental Health space, at present this is 1.5 FTE.

9. We also have partial shared services for the Eco Design Advisor area. There is a contract under negotiation with UHCC to provide swimming pool audits, building inspections and consenting.

10. The Eco Design Advisor role is fundamental to achieving a clean, healthy, attractive and sustainable environment.

11. The Environmental Consents activity contributes primarily to our community outcomes of a safe community, a strong and diverse economy, an accessible and connected city, healthy people, a healthy natural environment, and a healthy and attractive built environment.

Reason for the review

12. This review is required because three years have passed since this Activity was last reviewed in 2016.

Rationale for service provision

Legal requirements

13. Environmental Consents activities have an operational focus involving timeframes set out in legislation. The key legislation that the division works under is:

· Resource Management Act 1991 (resource management functions)

· Building Act 2004 (building functions; including weathertight homes, earthquake prone buildings, building warrant of fitness, accreditation requirements)

· Local Government Act 2002 (right of way approvals, general enforcement duties)

· Local Government Information and Meetings Act 1987 (LIMs, Official Information Requests)

· Food Act 2014 (food verifications, food control plans, national programme)

· Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012 (liquor licence, on and off licence, certificate of use)

· Heath Act 1956 (public nuisance complaints, water supply, public health orders)

· Litter Act 1979 (enforcement, infringement notices, offences and penalties)

· HASNO 1996 (referrals from Upper Hutt City Council, contamination)

· Bylaws

Key strategies and plans influencing activity

14. The Resource Consents Team implements the City of Lower Hutt District Plan. The team work together with the Environmental Policy Division (EPD) in terms of discussion over interpretation of the District Plan objectives, policies and rules. The Resource Consents Team officers also liaise with the EPD over potential changes needed to the District Plan which are highlighted via its administration of the rules.

15. The Eco Design Advisor (EDA) function satisfies a number of the Environmental Sustainability Strategy’s objectives. In particular, the EDA service satisfies:

· EET2: Improve our residents’ health and well- being through making our homes warmer and more energy efficient;

· EDT4: Make available better information on energy saving schemes and products;

· EMT3: Investigate extending the home efficient heating scheme in Wainuiomata;

· EDT2: Promote home energy monitors for Lower Hutt’ residents.

· LAT5: Encourage development of residential buildings which maximise solar gain for heating and warmth eg. passive solar, photovoltaics.

16. By providing independent advice on making homes warmer, drier and healthier, the Eco Design Advisor service fulfils the premise behind the healthy homes healthy people programme (which focused on retrofitting homes, particularly lower income houses, and the link between health and social services). The EDA service promotes the insulation and heating of homes, and puts residents in touch with the correct agencies for funding and additional help. To continue to meet this objective in the strategy, home visits by the EDA are necessary.

17. The EDA service also helps to satisfy a number of other objectives of the Environmental Sustainability Strategy. These are not directly related to healthy and sustainable housing, but do sit within the broader sustainability context.

· EAT1: Investigate options to promote the burning of untreated dry firewood among households.

· EDC2: Develop and implement an Energy Reduction Plan for Council.

· EDE2: Improve the quality of information on our local renewable energy resource, solar insolation, wind etc.

18. The EDA undertakes an average of six visits of residents’ homes per week, completes talks to different groups within the community including; schools and polytechnics, new migrants, libraries, community houses and refugee groups. Visits and presentations serve to educate and raise community awareness of warmth, health and sustainability in the home, this is both building improvement and behavioural based advice. Hutt City’s EDA also takes a leading role in organising and presenting at the annual Eco Design conference.

Community outcomes contributed to by the activity

19. The following table sets out how the Environmental Consents division supports community outcomes:

Community outcome	How Environmental Consents contributes
A safe community	Responsible for the administration of the Building Act, focused on public safety in buildings, accessibility and fire safety. Annual building warrant of fitness checks to ensure all building systems are operational and the buildings are safe for occupants & visitors to commercial & industrial buildings. Enforcement of the Building Act with regard to Earthquake Prone Building to ensure buildings are built or upgraded to appropriate standards to withstand deaths from earthquakes. Enforcement of the Building Act with regard to fencing of swimming pools; auditing appropriate fencing around domestic pools & spa pools to avoid death by drowning. Enforcement of the Food Act to ensure licensed premises are operating in a healthy and hygienic manner Enforcement of the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act to ensure licensed premises are operating in a manner so that patrons and staff are safe.
A strong diverse economy	Pre-application discussions with developers to ensure quality developments in the City, negotiating and processing resource and building consents.
An accessible and well-connected city	Negotiation of good subdivision design, encouraging connectivity. Processing of building consent applications that adhere with accessibility requirements of the Building Code.
A healthy and attractive built environment	Administration of design guidelines in District Plan to ensure good urban design for developments in the city. Administration and enforcement of the Litter Act to ensure that breaches are dealt with appropriately. Administration of the Health Act to ensure that breaches are dealt with appropriately.

Present arrangements for governance, funding and service delivery

Activity	HCC governance funding and delivery	HCC or shared governance and funding with delivery by another party	Future options
Environmental Consents	Building services (including fencing of swimming pools, Building Warrants of Fitness, Earthquake-prone buildings) Eco Design Advisor service Resource consent services (including RMA Monitoring & Enforcement) LIMs	*Contracted in:* Eco Design Advisor service –EDA service provided for UHCC Environmental Health – 1.5 FTE EHO staff currently contracted to UHCC *Contracted out:* Resource consents services – if consents exceed resources, then consultants are engaged to process resource consent applications Building consent application processing – Comply NZ – when workloads are high and timeframes are excessive. Environmental Health – 1.5 FTE EHO staff currently contracted to UHCC.	Simpli – Full integration with the QMS and online lodgment portal* Fencing of swimming pools – contract under negotiation with UHCC

Activity

HCC
governance funding and delivery

HCC
or shared governance and funding with delivery by another party

Future options

Environmental Consents

Building services (including fencing of swimming pools, Building Warrants of Fitness, Earthquake-prone buildings)

Eco Design Advisor service

Resource consent services (including RMA Monitoring & Enforcement)

LIMs

Contracted in:

Eco Design Advisor service –EDA service provided for UHCC

Environmental Health – 1.5 FTE EHO staff currently contracted to UHCC

Contracted out:

Resource consents services – if consents exceed resources, then consultants are engaged to process resource consent applications

Building consent application processing – Comply NZ – when workloads are high and timeframes are excessive.

Environmental Health – 1.5 FTE EHO staff currently contracted to UHCC.

Simpli – Full integration with the QMS and online lodgment portal*

Fencing of swimming pools – contract under negotiation with UHCC

*Wellington City Council, Porirua City Council, Kapiti Coast District Council, Upper Hutt City Council, Gisborne District Council, Wairoa District Council, Hastings District Council, Napier City Council, Central Hawkes Bay District Council, New Plymouth District Council, Stratford District Council, South Taranaki District Council, Ruapehu District Council, Wanganui District Council, Rangitikei District Council, Manawatu District Council, Palmerston North District Council, Tararua District Council, Horowhenua District Council, Masterton District Council, Carterton District Council, South Wairarapa District Council, Tasman District Council, Nelson City Council, Marlborough District Council and Hutt City Council

Building services

20. Currently the Building Team are accredited as a Building Consent Authority and deliver all outputs under the Building Act. The Building Team is currently using a contractor (Comply NZ) to process building consents due to increased workload and staff shortage.

21. The division is negotiating the finer details of a contract with Upper Hutt City Council to undertake swimming pool inspections in Upper Hutt.

22. To date twenty three councils around New Zealand, including Hutt City Council, signed up to Simpli – a programme to standardise and simplify the building consenting process. This will offer an enhanced service to customers that works across multiple local authorities.

23. Standardised consent application forms across all participating Councils have been achieved. The next step is to consider launching into the Simpli online portal and adopting the Quality Management System.

Eco Design Advisor services

24. Hutt City Council is currently providing an Eco Design Advisor service to Upper Hutt and currently negotiating further services with UHCC. The exact detail of this is yet to be agreed, but it is likely to be in the healthy homes area.

Resource Consent services

25. Any additional contracts will be reported to the Strategic Leadership Team.

Current and future risks likely to have a significant impact on this activity

26. The major risks associated with Environmental Consents work are:

· Council staff or elected members failing to act in accordance with statutory requirements. In order to mitigate this risk we always have an independent commissioner acting with Councillors (acting as RMA Hearings Commissioners). We also ensure that all Councillors sitting as RMA Hearings Commissioners have passed the Ministry for the Environment's Good Decision Making training.

· For staff we have regular training on legislative requirements, all staff have access to up-to-date legislation and case law/determinations. Regular staff meetings are held where any issues are discussed.

· There is a risk of unauthorised planning development through error in advice to the public. This has been monitored via weekly meetings with RMA staff. Regular staff updates are held to ensure everyone is up to date with current information. Training has been provided to keep up to date with changes to legislation and rules (including liaison with RMA lawyers and the District Plan Policy team).

· Staff carry copies of appropriate documentation on site to refer to if necessary when providing advice to public.

· An induction check sheet has been implemented for Environmental Consents new staff to ensure they are aware of all requirements prior to becoming customer facing and giving advice.

· There is a risk of non-compliant development and/or adverse environmental effects as a result of lack of judgement in making enforcement decisions. The risks are mitigated by staff using the Monitoring & Enforcement Manual to ensure consistency in decisions. The enforcement staff have weekly/fortnightly meetings with managers to discuss enforcement issues (RMA delegation is retained by the manager). Guidance is sought on a case by case basis from manager and senior staff.

· Regular meetings between the Building Team, Environmental Health Team, Trade Waste and Resource Consents Team enforcement staff to discuss enforcement issues to help with judgement and to discuss risk based enforcement.

· We have also ensured that both RMA Monitoring and Enforcement staff and senior Resource Consents Team staff attended the RMA enforcement conference to ensure that they keep up to date with best practice.

· All staff are knowledgeable regarding the delegations that they work under, and there are reminders about this throughout the year as well as procedures in place to ensure that decisions are not made without the appropriate delegation.

· There is a risk of non-compliant development and/or adverse environmental effects as a result of a user not receiving the most up-to-date and complete information. To mitigate this risk we have a robust QA system in place to check information going into TRIM is filed accurately and in a timely manner.

· We have TRIM protocols in place for the Environmental Consents Division that are brought to the attention of all staff more than once per year, and are given to each new staff member at their induction meeting with the Divisional Manager, Environmental Consents.

· We have procedures in place to ensure there is training before the use of databases which require a degree of discretion on the part of the officers.

· We regularly have new staff and run a buddy system to ensure that staff are not operating independently before they are ready to minimise risk

· There is a risk of unplanned costs through successful weather tightness claims. We have been mitigating this risk by ensuring that our lawyers are timely in communicating claims to us by regular contact and agreements. These are reported regularly to the General Manager and the Chief Finance Officer. The number of weathertight homes claims has reduced drastically, as the limitation period draws closer (currently we have one live claim).

· There is risk of failing to act in accordance with food safety requirements that could lead to, for example, food poisoning, giardia etc. To mitigate this risk food businesses are assessed and verified by the Environmental Health Team staff and any complaints are dealt with immediately. Staff attend mobile food stalls and fairs to monitor food safety and random compliance monitoring is being carried out.

· Two weekly staff meeting held to discuss issues surrounding food, liaison with Regional Public Health and Ministry of Primary Industries on a regular basis to discuss any issues arising.

Current performance against KPIs compared to historical and peer benchmarks

ACTIVITY 12 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT NON FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE MEASURES
STATUS √ or X	MEASURE	TARGET 2018-2019 to 2027-28	To Date	Comment (how well you are doing now and any initiatives to ensure meet target)
√	Land Information Memoranda (LIMs) processed within 10 working days to comply with statutory requirements	> 95% processed within nine working days	98%	Currently meeting the target
√	Building consent/project information and resource consents processed to comply with the Building Code, Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) and District Plan requirements	≥ 80% of building and non-notified land use consents processed within 18 working days	BC - 97%	Currently meeting the target
X	Resource consents are monitored within five working days of being notified that development is commencing or within six months of the consent being granted, whichever is the sooner.	≥ 90% of resource consents monitored within these timeframes	RC non notified – 53.6%	Not meeting this target due to the significant increase in RC applications lodged to meet the December 2018 deadline for development remissions.
√	Requests for service referred to RMA monitoring and enforcement team responded to within required timeframes	100% acknowledged with 24 hours	100%	Currently meeting the target
√	Building consents for fireplaces processed in a timely manner	100% processed within five working days	100%	Currently meeting the target
√	Building consents for solar panels processed in a timely manner	100% processed within five working days	100%	Currently meeting the target
√	Code compliance certificates issued within 20 working days to comply with statutory requirements in the Building Act 2004	80% issued in 18 working days	100%	Currently meeting the target
√	Noise complaints responded to within 45 minutes	≥ 85% noise complaints responded to within 45 minutes	86%	Currently meeting this this target and will continue to meet this target by year end.
X	New food businesses verified within six weeks of the date of registration under the Food Act 2014	95%	0%	Not meeting target due to a large backlog of verifications – this is a result of nationwide skills shortages, resulting in problems with recruitment.
X	Existing food businesses verified within their agreed timeframes (between 3 to 18 months, depending upon the outcome of their previous verification)	95%	6.3%	Not meeting target due to a large backlog of verifications – this is a result of nationwide skills shortages, resulting in problems with recruitment.
√	High risk premises selling liquor are inspected during their peak trading hours to maintain compliance with the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act 2012	95%	98%	Currently meeting the target.

Trends for Environmental Consents 2015-2018 Hutt City Council Only

Total operating and capital cost of the service over the past 3 years and next 10 years

27. Environmental Consents has a net operating budget of $3.5 m (that is, revenue minus costs) spread between the teams.

28. The division has seen a significant increase in revenue this year, with the revenue at year end forecasting to be $1M over the budgeted amount. This has largely been the result of a significant increase in building and resource consents applications that have been lodged during this period.

29. Our operating costs are $400K over the budgeted amount, mostly due to the need to employ contractors to fill the staff shortage. This is offset somewhat by our employee costs being $316K below budget due to the vacancies we are carrying at present.

30. Budgeted employee costs are higher than previous years due to the re-structure that now includes the Environmental Health Team within the division.

31. The remissions policy has been a catalyst for the increase number of building and resource consents and there has been a notable increase in the complexity of the building work as well. This has translated into increased fees revenue in both teams.

32. The division holds the responsibility for negotiating and settling weathertight homes claims. This has dropped off significantly with only one claim that has remained dormant for a number of years.

Column1	Column3	Column4	Column5	Column6	Column7	Column8
	Actual	Actual	Actual	Forecast	Budget	10 year forecast
ACC CATEGORY	2015/16	2016/17	2017/18	2018/19	2018/19	- 2029


User Charges	(3,692,228)	(4,059,682)	(4,597,557)	(5,543,015)	(4,527,960)	(51,355,330)
Other Revenue	(160,277)	(146,095)	(199,918)	(198,822)	(200,000)	(1,984,320)
Employee Costs	3,849,044	3,966,177	3,970,563	4,299,320	4,616,690	47,170,084
Support Costs	2,281,990	2,199,424	2,444,271	2,493,667	2,493,667	25,843,341
Operating Costs	1,711,234	627,013	871,096	1,455,572	1,040,726	7,355,040
Depreciation	46,210	46,888	46,888	60,928	46,888	190,940
Capital				62,482

Implications of changes to budgets allocations or level of service provision – either a requirement for a 10% reduction or 10% increase

33. By raising the fees and charges in the division by 5%, it would allow more resources to process applications, resulting in faster timeframes. Essentially, this would aid in fulfilling our strategic goal to ‘make it easier to do business with us’, and would result in more positive feedback from our customers. There could be a positive change to the timeframes in the division’s key performance indicators.

34. A 5% reduction in fees and charges in the division would necessarily lead to a reduction in resources and a decrease in service levels.

35. In the building services area this could result in problems meeting statutory deadlines, as there is no external Building Consent Authority that is able to process our work cost-effectively. At the very least, it would result in longer timeframes for processing building consent applications, and/or longer wait times for inspections bookings.

36. In the planning services area, this may lead to the team using resource management consultants to process resource consent applications, and perhaps a reduction in compliance and enforcement resource. This could result in higher costs for resource consent applicants, as consultants are inherently less efficient at processing these applications than Council staff.

37. In the LIMs area the fast track service could be discontinued. This would result in an increase in complaints in this area.

38. Alternative revenue streams are investigated every year. For example, in the last three years we have added a number of additional fees in the building area which cover officer time for services such as accreditation costs, code of compliance review and Licence Building Practitioner checks. Pre-application meetings are not charged for currently as it is felt that these help to encourage quality applications. This could be re-considered. Currently the division does not charge for enforcement time. This can be charged for under the RMA.

Comparison of any significant fees or charges against peers

39. Resource consents fee comparison:

2.	Hutt City	Wellington City	Porirua City	Upper Hutt City
Hourly rate	$160	$155	$163.60	$120
Notified application	$4960	$16000	$4901.30	$4140
Limited notified application	$5760	$8400	$4901.30	$2340
Non-notified application	$1280	$1650-$2700	$816.80-$1633.60	$885
Outline plan approval	$1120	$1040	$816.80	$885

40. Building consent fee comparison:

3.	Hutt City	Wellington City	Porirua City	Upper Hutt City
Hourly rate	$160	$163.50	$138	$120
Inspections	$160	$163.50	$138	$120
Amendment	$160	$234.00	$163.30	$147
Freestanding fire	$400	$204.00	$404.30	$387
Inbuilt fire	$400	$430.00	$404.30	$507
CPU	$320		$434.70	$283.50
CoA	$900 + consent fee	$796.50-$3773.00	$434.70	$283.50 + base fee
Consultants (NZFS)	cost	Cost +$75.50	Cost + 10%	Cost
Time extension	$160	$163.50	$82.90	N/A
Pools	$130	$163.50 per hour		$120
BWoF	$160	$175-$244.75	$244.10	$120
CS amendment	$160	$40-$159	$163.30	$165

41. Environmental Health fee comparison:

4.	Hutt City	Wellington City	Porirua City	Upper Hutt City
Hourly rate	$160	$155	$151.40	$120
Food verification	$160-320	$155	$200.90	$120
Renewal FCP/NP Registration	$160	$155	$138	120
Significant Amendment	$160	$155		!120
Enforcement Notice	$320	$155		$120
Hairdresser	$230	$130	$236.4	$227
Mortuary	$230	$155	$484.10	$305
Camping Grounds	$300	$250	$454.70	$305
Offensive Trades	$230	$310

Current highlights or issues of significance to Council

42. Divisional highlights include:

· Accreditation obtained through Ministry for Primary Industries for the food area of business undertaken by the Environmental Health Team

· End to end process for building and resource consents are electronic and we are working towards this for the Environmental Health Team

· Extremely positive feedback from the MBIE during an Audit in 2018 of our Territory Authority Building functions (including Building Warrants of Fitness and fencing of swimming pools) - “One of the best in the country and leading the way on many aspects.”

· All 21 building owners that required the urgent securing of unreinforced masonry on their buildings by the September 2018 deadline completed the work within the timeframe. The legislation was passed in March 2017 requiring Councils to ensure owners took urgent action.

· Achieved continued Building Consent Authority accreditation in 2018.

· We took the first successful prosecution of an owner of an earthquake-prone building to the District Court.

· Property records and plans, Compliance Schedules, Building Warrants of Fitness and drainage plans are all available on our web site; we are one of the very few Councils that offer this service.

· Re-structured several teams to provide opportunities for career advancement and succession planning to help with retention of staff.

· Created a cadet position in the Building Team, and have had one person qualified and trained through this process.

· Set up a system to work collaboratively with the Ministry of Education and Regional Public Health to create a one-stop shop for the approval of childcare centres.

43. The issues of significance for Council include:

· Shortage of technical staff across the division; we have a retention strategy in place to ensure that we keep our good staff. Competitive salaries, targeted training and career development opportunities have been highlighted as reasons why staff would leave Council.

· IT systems constantly needing to be altered and refined are causing time delays. The unstable nature of key IT systems, such as Ci and GIS, are causing re-work and restricting us from delivering high quality services to our customers.

Reasonably practicable options for the governance, funding and delivery of this activity

44. The division is currently exploring options for shared services, particularly with Upper Hutt City Council (for pools). This is in the very early stages and will be reported through the GMs report.

45. Building Information Modelling.

46. Full mobility for Environmental Health Officers.

Appendices

There are no appendices for this report.

Author: Derek Kerite

Acting Divisional Manager, Environmental Consents

Approved By: Helen Oram

Acting General Manager, City Transformation

54 15 July 2019

Policy and Regulatory Committee

01 July 2019

File: (19/872)

Report no: PRC2019/3/152

Update on the Work to Adapt to Climate Change Impacts

Purpose of Report

1. This report provides

a. an update on the work to map and identify places, communities and assets threatened by sea level rise; and

b. information on the alternative approaches to begin engagement with Lower Hutt communities to prepare for the forecast impacts of climate change, and the development of response options.

Recommendations

That the Committee:

(i) notes that a number of coastal areas in Lower Hutt are at risk of forecast sea level rise and associated climate change impacts;

(ii) notes two alternative approaches to begin engagement with Lower Hutt communities to prepare for the forecast impacts of climate change, in line with guidance provided by the Ministry for the Environment;

(iii) notes that the community panel approach as implemented in Hawkes Bay and Makara Beach does not appear viable at this stage, due to a number of constraints, including lack of funding and resourcing to support such a process;

(iv) notes that a workshop approach appears to be a viable and more cost-effective alternative to undertake community engagement;

(v) agrees that officers report back with more detail on project scope, phases and timeframes to carry out community engagement regarding climate change impacts, in alignment with Council’s upcoming work to review its four strategies;

(vi) agrees that in principle, engagement work should principally be funded from within funding already set aside in the Long-Term Plan for the 2019/20 financial year for adaptation work with communities; and

(vii) notes that given the long-term impacts arising from climate change, it is likely that there will be further costs in the future regarding
(i) community engagement on climate change impacts, and (ii) potential response measures.

For the reasons outlined in the report.

Background

Climate change impacts

2. In a report to the Policy and Regulatory Committee on 26 November 2018 (refer PRC2018/5/314), officers noted that the projected temperature increase as a result of an increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (as a consequence of human industrial and other activities) is expected to lead to a number of significant flow-on effects, including sea level rise (SLR).

3. Even in the most optimistic scenario, the lower range of SLR for Wellington Harbour is currently 0.5m by 2120, albeit with further increases beyond that timeframe due to inertia in the climate system. But looking at a more pessimistic scenario, a plausible upper range of SLR for Wellington Harbour is currently 0.5m by 2060, 1.0m by 2100 and 1.5m by 2310, with further increases thereafter.

4. Given a number of low-lying areas in Lower Hutt, our city is expected to be at particular risk from sea level rise and compounding effects such as increased rainfall intensity.

5. Addressing the impacts requires that measures be taken in two areas: mitigation (reducing GHG emissions) and adaptation (dealing with effects that have been locked in by past emissions but which have not yet eventuated) such as SLR.

The work over the last 12 months

6. Recognising the importance of helping communities that are at risk from SLR to adapt, Council, as part of its Long-Term Plan 2018-28, approved $200,000 to work with other councils in the region to map and identify places, communities and assets threatened by SLR, to begin engagement with Lower Hutt communities on the threat of climate change, and to develop response options.

7. Over the last 12 months, officers have carried out work:

a. to assess, at a high level, the vulnerability of Lower Hutt communities to SLR, one of the main expected impacts from climate change, in order to better understand the scale of the problem and where to focus effort.

b. to analyse and assess potential approaches to undertake a community engagement process in line with guidance provided by the Ministry for the Environment, building on relevant lessons learnt by other local authorities.

8. In this report, officers report back on this work, and provide options for undertaking this community engagement.

How vulnerable are Lower Hutt communities to sea level rise?

9. Council, in partnership with other territorial authorities in the Wellington region and Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC), commissioned Mitchell Daysh Ltd (a specialist resource management consultancy) to assist in the compilation of a high level assessment of the vulnerability of the different coastal areas in our region. Vulnerability in this context can be broadly defined as “the predisposition of a human or biological system to be adversely affected”.

10. The resulting report “Preparing Coastal Communities for Climate Change – assessing coastal vulnerability to climate change, sea level rise and natural hazards” is due to be released shortly by Greater Wellington Regional Council. This work is similar to what has been done in other cities. For example, consider the “Assessment of Vulnerability to Climate Change in Auckland” from March 2019).

11. For Lower Hutt, existing geographic information was used to assess the extent to which coastal areas would be exposed to the modelled scenario of a 1.0m SLR by 2100 in combination with a 100-year return storm event. Such storm event would increase sea level temporarily by a further 0.5m.

12. Using this information, each coastal area (unit) was then assessed against 24 criteria grouped into nine categories: Community, Business, Roads, 3 Waters, Lifelines Infrastructure, Māori and cultural, Ecological, Erosion, and Civil Defence and Emergency Management. The scores of the coastal unit against each of the criteria were then summed, in order to derive a “vulnerability score”, with low scores indicating low vulnerability, and high scores indicating high vulnerability.

13. For Lower Hutt, the assessment considered six coastal units, as follows:

a. Seaview (including Gracefield, Moera and Waiwhetu)

b. Petone (including Alicetown)

c. Eastbourne (including Sunshine Bay and Days Bay)

d. Lowry Bay (including Point Howard, Sorrento and Mahina Bay)

e. Pencarrow

f. Turakirae (including the settlement at the Wainuiomata River mouth).

14. Both Petone and Seaview have been identified as most vulnerable, largely driven by a relatively large population and the significant amount of assets and infrastructure in those areas.

15. Note that the results are not sensitive to changes with regard to the scores against particular criteria. This was confirmed as part of a sensitivity analysis. For example, Petone would still be vulnerable even if the population were significantly lower, due to high scores across a range of other criteria, such as the significant amount of infrastructure assets.

16. Overall, the study confirms that a number of areas in Lower Hutt are vulnerable to sea level rise, with Petone and Seaview most vulnerable, followed by Eastbourne and Lowry Bay.

17. To complement this study, and in order to get a better understanding of the scale of the issue, officers also carried out a high level desk-top analysis of the estimated number of properties in the suburbs identified in the above study as potentially being vulnerable to a modelled 1.0m SLR and a 0.5m storm surge scenario.

18. For this, capital-value-at-risk figures are used to provide a proxy for the estimated cost of the damage. In the absence of any adaptive actions taken, the economic impact of SLR could be substantial at the city level, with the value at potential risk estimated at ~$2.5b, comprised of approximately 2,200 residential buildings, 550 business properties and 60 community facilities. Note that these figures are initial estimates; they would need to be validated.

19. In addition, Wellington Water is currently carrying out work to model the impact of sea level rise and increased rainfall intensity on the potential for flooding in the Petone area, as part of their work to understand future network requirements. Results are expected to become available in the second half of 2019.

Community engagement on climate change impacts: the context

20. While there is uncertainty about the exact timing and amount of climate change impacts such as sea level rise, national legislation such as the Resource Management Act and policies such as the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement require territorial authorities to plan for relevant impacts over the next 100 years.

21. In order to assist local authorities to work through these issues with their communities, the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) has developed a guide: “Preparing for coastal change: A summary of coastal hazards and climate change guidance for local government”.

22. The guide was developed “to help local government and others assess, plan for and manage the increasing risks facing local communities” and, in the absence of any more formal framework, currently provides local authorities with a best practice guide to this complex area.

23. This document describes a ten step, iterative, decision cycle process for local authorities to follow, see Figure 1:

Figure 1: MfE Adaptive Pathways Decision Cycle

Source: (page 9) in “Preparing for Coastal Change: A Summary of Coastal Hazards and Climate Change Guidance for Local Government”, MfE, December 2017

24. In designing a process to engage with its communities, it will be important to use this guidance in order to align with best practice, and to minimise risk of process failure. However, the exact application of the process may differ, depending on the circumstances in each local authority.

25. In any case, there is a need to link the outcomes from any community engagement to the local regulatory documents, such as the Long Term Plan and District Plan, in order to (re-)direct investment where appropriate, and to provide more certainty with regard to community investments, such as where development may no longer be appropriate in light of forecast climate change impacts.

Potential approaches to undertake community engagement

26. In order to apply MfE guidance, officers considered the approaches employed by other Councils, and any relevant lessons learnt, in order to derive the options available to Hutt City Council.

27. Overall, there are two alternative options to consider, as follows:

a. A community panel approach, as implemented in Hawkes Bay and in Makara Beach in Wellington City.

b. A workshop approach, with variations implemented in Porirua and Nelson.

28. Note that a do-nothing option has not been explored in this paper, as Council has already recognised that some level of community engagement is required, in line with the funding set aside for this work in its LTP 2018-2028 and legislative requirements.

29. Note also that when referring to the “community panel approach”, it does so in the context of the community-led panel structure as used in Hawkes Bay. This is different in structure and function to the community panels currently in use in Lower Hutt (Central, Eastern, Northern and Western Community Panels).

30. In the following sections, each option and its key advantages and disadvantages is described.

Community panel approach

31. In this approach, a community panel would be established to gain a common understanding of the SLR challenge, and to develop agreed solutions. The outcome of this process could be an agreed strategy, with significant buy-in from the community. This approach has been tested in two locations, Hawkes Bay and Makara Beach.

32. In Hawkes Bay, neighbouring councils cooperated and undertook a process that eventually resulted in their Clifton to Tangoio Coastal Hazard Management Strategy 2120, identifying preferred short (0 – 20 years), medium (20 – 50 years) and long-term (50 – 100 years) adaptive solutions.

33. In principle, the community panel approach has similarities with the community-led “Whaitua” process regarding water quality currently being undertaken and led by Greater Wellington Regional Council. However, there are some challenges with the community panel approach, as follows.

Hutt City Council funding and resourcing

34. Based on current estimates, this approach is cost and resource intensive. Assuming one panel being run in a selected Lower Hutt coastal area, and some cost and resource savings from partnering with Greater Wellington Regional Council and Kāpiti Coast District Council (common project manager, shared technical advice, etc), Hutt City Council’s 1/3 cost share is estimated at $450,000, with approximately $315,000 in direct costs (technical advice, etc), and $135,000 in in-kind support (eg staff time).

35. This cost would likely be spread over two financial years. Notably, if cost and resource savings could not be realised from partnering, then total costs to Hutt City Council would increase further. However, at this stage, Council’s LTP has only allocated $200,000 during the 2019/2020 financial year, and Hutt City Council would not be able to undertake a community panel approach without additional funding being allocated.

Funding and resourcing by Greater Wellington Regional Council

36. Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) would have to be a key partner in the community panel approach. GWRC has confirmed that it has not allocated any direct funding toward a community panel approach as envisaged above in its LTP. From a financial cost sharing perspective, this effectively rules out the community panel approach at this stage.

37. Having said that, GWRC has confirmed its willingness to provide staff support, including specialist advice, and it may allocate relevant funds in the future.

Lack of clarity on whether resulting solutions are affordable

38. As a result of the community-led panel approach, the communities in Hawkes Bay and in Makara Beach agreed on preferred options for dealing with sea level rise. However, some of these involve costly hard protection measures, but it is not yet fully clear whether these are affordable for the relevant communities and territorial authorities.

39. In addition, at least at this point in time, the outcomes from the community panel approach in both Hawkes Bay and Makara Beach have yet to be fully implemented, such as with relevant provisions in the councils’ respective district plans. Ultimately, this would be the test to determine the success or otherwise of such community-led approaches.

Scalability

40. It is uncertain to what extent a community-led assessment panel is (or is not) scalable. This question arises from differences between the Hawkes Bay communities and the coastal regions assessed as vulnerable in Lower Hutt.

41. Key differences are as follows:

a. Petone has a significantly higher population of about 9,500 against an estimated 5,000 people or less in the Hawkes Bay panel areas.

b. The capital value potentially at risk in the “Petone” and “Seaview” coastal units in particular is very likely much higher than in Hawkes Bay, a consequence of the much larger number of properties affected and urban/rural property value differences. However, it is important to note that capital value at risk is only a proxy attribute for damage and further work in this area may see the value at risk from SLR and associated effects decrease.

c. The process in Hawkes Bay excluded key commercial areas (e.g. the Port of Napier) from its considerations and neither the City of Napier nor the Napier CBD was considered to require adaptation responses over the next 100 years. While the Lower Hutt CBD is also not considered to be at risk from SLR at this point in time, there is a very significant amount of industrial and commercial activity in the “Petone” and especially the “Seaview” coastal units.

42. The above differences may also indicate that one panel may not be sufficient to cover the affected coastal areas of Lower Hutt. Instead, it may require up to four panels, with a commensurate increase in costs and resources required to manage these, and the potentially difficult decision around which areas may be chosen to go first. In addition, this approach may not be the most appropriate for areas where there is a high density of businesses such as Seaview/Gracefield and parts of Petone.

43. In light of these four challenges, a community panel approach as applied in Hawkes Bay and Makara Beach does not appear to be a viable option for Hutt City Council at this point in time.

44. While there may be scope for some modifications to the process, in order to address the challenges regarding scalability and the linkage of outcomes to any District Plan review process, the lack of direct LTP funding at GWRC to support such work effectively rules this approach out – albeit these conclusions could be revisited if key factors such as funding support by GWRC were to change.

Workshop approach

45. In this approach, Hutt City Council would conduct a programme of work consisting of a series of workshops, with the first round of workshops focused on getting a shared understanding with the community on the problem and identifying values (eg amenity, property, etc.) that are at risk, and the second round focused on considering possible long-term outcomes and more immediate management options.

46. This type of approach is being utilised by Porirua City Council in informing the review of the coastal chapter of their District Plan, and Nelson City Council.

47. The workshop approach appears to be more suitable than a community panel approach for Council due to the following.

Hutt City Council funding and resourcing

48. The workshop approach is achievable within the $200,000 previously allocated to this type of work under the LTP 2018-28.

49. While the approach would put pressure on existing staff resources, third-party community engagement support could be procured in order to supplement existing staff resources.

Resourcing by Greater Wellington Regional Council

50. GWRC has indicated its willingness to provide in-kind support, ie staff time and specialist advice.

Linkage to means of implementation

51. A key feature of the workshop approach is that it could link directly with the development of our next Long Term Plan 2021-31, the review of Council’s four strategies and proposed spatial plan, and the review of our District Plan. The work for the development of the LTP and the review of our strategies and the District Plan is likely to get under way during the 2019/20 financial year, and the outcomes from the community engagement process could feed directly into these.

52. This point is crucial, because outcomes resulting from the community engagement process could be meaningless unless relevant decisions are reflected in the LTP (in terms of funding for adaptation measures, especially in the context of affordability vis a vis other council priorities), any spatial plans and associated strategies (in terms of the shape of city in the context of a changed climate) and the District Plan (in terms of relevant rules to drive development or limit development in certain areas).

53. In addition to the outcomes of the process informing the future content of relevant strategy and planning documents at Hutt City Council (eg District Plan), as an intermediate step, the process could result in a more action-oriented Climate Change Adaptation Plan to inform work over the shorter-term, such as the next five years.

54. Note that officers are scoping the work for the development of a potential community-wide Lower Hutt Zero Carbon Plan. In light of the linkages between climate change adaptation and mitigation, a potential Lower Hutt Zero Carbon Plan and a possible Climate Change Adaptation Plan could ultimately be joined together to form a Lower Hutt Zero Carbon and Climate Resilience Plan.

Scalability and flexibility

55. The workshop approach is sufficiently scalable in order to allow wider participation of members of the public, not just those selected for a community panel. Where required, the number of workshops could be increased, depending on the demand.

56. In addition, the process could potentially be supplemented by the establishment of a stakeholder reference group. While it would not have the same scope as a community panel as utilised in Hawkes Bay, it could serve the function of a more frequent communication and feedback mechanism between Council officers designing the process and leading the work, and engaging with the wider community. Such a stakeholder reference group could be made up of key business and community representatives, including one Councillor and one representative from the Youth Council.

Next steps

57. Officers could report back by the end of 2019 with more detail on project scope, phases and timeframes to carry out community engagement regarding climate change impacts, in alignment with Council’s upcoming work to review its four strategies.

Regional collaboration and governance

58. In 2017, Wellington Region Climate Change Working Group (WRCCWG) was established to provide a forum via which councils and mana whenua from across the Wellington Region can network, discuss issues, share information and where appropriate, achieve a consistent approach across all jurisdictions on climate change mitigation (reducing greenhouse gas emissions) and adaptation (preparing for impacts such as sea level rise). The WRCCWG is made up of representatives from each local council and mana whenua.

59. In June 2018, a sub-group to the WRCCWG was established to progress work on options for engaging with communities on climate change impacts such as sea level rise. The working group approach has been a valuable means of collaborating on proposed work regarding climate change adaptation and mitigation.

60. One of the issues considered in more detail was regional governance and/or oversight of relevant community engagement processes going forward. Options were developed, including retaining these (non-statutory) working groups or alternatively establishing a joint-committee established under the Local Government Act 2002.

61. Officers consider that it would be useful to consider the value of changing the structure of one of those working groups to a joint committee, in order to provide a more formalised way of collaboration between local councils, GWRC, and mana whenua.

62. While there are administrative costs associated with the establishment and maintenance of a joint committee, key benefits are that it could improve clarity and focus to regional cooperation on climate change work, provide for improved transparency with recorded agendas and minutes, and to provide a more formalised way of having mana whenua involved at the governance level.

63. Within the Wellington region there are several examples where joint committees are in place on issues of common interest and similar complexity, such as the Wellington Region Waste Management and Minimisation Plan Joint Committee, the Regional Transport Committee, and the Civil Defence and Emergency Management Committee.

64. Councils may be asked to consider the establishment of a joint committee later in the 2019/20 financial year.

Financial Considerations

65. In principle, the engagement work, if going ahead, could be funded from within the funding already set aside in the Long-Term Plan for the 2019/20 financial year for adaptation work with communities.

66. Given the long-term impacts arising from climate change, it is likely that there will be further costs in future regarding (i) community engagement on climate change impacts, and (ii) potential response measures.

Appendices

There are no appendices for this report.

Author: Jörn Scherzer

Manager, Sustainability and Resilience

Approved By: Helen Oram

Acting General Manager, City Transformation

63 15 July 2019

Policy and Regulatory Committee

13 June 2019

File: (19/760)

Report no: PRC2019/3/136

General Manager's Report

Purpose of Report

1. The Policy and Regulatory Committee requested a General Manager’s report containing information on major consents, hearings, appeals to the Environment Court and enforcement matters.

Recommendation

That the Committee notes the contents of this report.

Background

2. This report covers the activities of three divisions in the City Transformation Group. It firstly covers Environmental Consents, secondly Regulatory Services and thirdly Sustainability and Resilience.

3. Environmental Consent data is attached as Appendix 1 to the report, and Regulatory Services data is attached as Appendix 2 to the report. The Sustainability and Resilience officers have provided an update to the Committee on the Whaitua process.

4. The Environmental Consents division processes consent applications under the Resource Management Act, the Food Act, the Sale & Supply of Alcohol Act and the Building Act (resource and building consents, liquor and food licences and District Licensing reports), as well as LIMs and property enquiries under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act.

5. Environmental Health services are provided for Upper Hutt City Council as well as Lower Hutt. The Environmental Consents team offers an Eco Design Advisor service across the city.

6. Regulatory Services deals with trade waste applications, bylaws, animal services, parking and emergency management.

Discussion – Environmental Consents

7. The numbers of applications across the board are higher compared to the same time last year. In particular, resource consents workloads remain high, as we are dealing with the backlog of consents that were submitted before the Development Remissions programme closed at the end of 2018.

8. The additional workload across the three core technical teams within our division i.e. Building Consents, Resource Consents, Environmental Health has led to a substantial increase in administration work for our support team.

Building Team

9. The total value of work for building consents received up to the end of May 2019 is $163M from 718 consents, compared to the previous year and period, when the value of work received was $86m from 623 building consents. This equates to an 89% increase in the value of work and 95 more consents for the same period last year. We continue to employ the services of a contractor to process building consents, due to the high volume we are receiving and a building officer shortage. Rising consent numbers have been confirmed from Housing New Zealand and the addition of 50 classrooms for the Ministry of Education.

10. Recent building consent applications received of note include:

· 177 High Street - Conversion into apartments and café; $6m structural strengthening and alterations of the existing building and change of use to 1st, 2^nd and 3^rd floors into residential apartments. Ground floor to be converted into retail and café facilities.

· 20 Hautonga Street - Earthquake strengthening; $375k work consisting of strengthening the building to 80% NBS, replacing the asbestos roof with a AlumiGard roof, alterations to the existing WC& washroom to form a new accessible WC, upgrading of the fire system.

· Meechan Street, Seaview - ADBUILD 19 prefabricated relocatable dwellings worth $3m. The buildings are up to three stories when fully assembled and are being constructed in a warehouse in Seaview. All apartments are to be transported to Auckland for Housing New Zealand.

Earthquake prone buildings

11. We have been working with property owners who had notices that expired at the end of last year and following up with them regarding how they are progressing in resolving the earthquake prone issues with their buildings and options available to the Council to resolve these matters.

12. The Building Act amendment to formalise post-emergency procedures has passed and received royal assent on 17 June 2019. The changes come on the back of the learnings from the Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquakes and will clarify specific roles within Councils. It also allows us to develop a framework to better deal with the response and recovery stages of an emergency.

Eco Design Advisory Service (EDA)

13. The new HEAT (Home Energy Assessment Tool) are now available for people to book out through our local libraries, allowing residents to measure the temperatures and humidity levels in their homes, as well as energy usage. The Eco Design Advisor undertook some seminars at the libraries to coordinate with this resource being available.

14. We are continuing to assist Upper Hutt City Council by undertaking any EDA visits as requested within their region.

15. The Eco Design Advisor service had a presence at the Te Wa Heke festival (previously the Hutt STEMM Festival) – the theme was thermography –we used our thermal camera to show where the heat from heaters actually goes.

Swimming Pools

16. We now have on board an officer to move forward with our swimming pool inspection programme under the Building Act.

17. We are contacting property owners where the pool status is uncertain and working to resolve these.

Resource Consents Team

18. We are still working through the large number of multi-unit consents that were lodged with us in December. Most of the processing is being handled by external consultants, and are being worked through. The table below shows that this year we’ve received 90 more consents than we did last year. Depicting all the extra work we’ve been doing.

Period	Number of RCs received
1/7/2017 to 31/5/2018	284
1/7/2018 to 31/5/2019	374

19. The Environment Court hearing for the Summerset development in Boulcott was held 17-19^th June. This development is interesting as it’s only the second development in Lower Hutt (the first being Countdown Petone) that has been directly referred to the Environment Court by-passing the usual hearings and appeal process. The decision making panel will now deliberate and provide their decision to council in the next couple of months.

20. 51 consents were approved in May 2019 which is a record number and about twice as much as a normal month.

21. Notable resource consents lodged:

· Eastern Bay Shared Path: application lodged by council to construct a cycleway. This consent involves lots of experts and will be publically notified. We are collaborating with Greater Wellington Regional Council on the processing of this consent.

Recently granted resource consents

· 37a Bloomfield Terrace – Re-build of Queensgate Cinema and carpark

· 30 Waione Street, Petone – Proposed Gull Petrol Station

· 2 Campbell Terrace, Petone – Stage 2 of the Lane block development

· Beltway Cycleway Consent: application lodged by Council to construct cycleway alongside rail corridor

Land Information Memoranda (LIMs) Team

22. LIM’s team has had its busiest year to date. With 1009 residential and 71 commercial LIM’s issued between 1/07/18 and 31/05/19.

23. This means our LIM’s revenue is up significantly on budgeted amounts, $22,000 favourable.

24. The new LIM tool is now in use, it’s having some teething issues being worked through with IT and LIS, which is not affecting our customers.

Environmental Health Team

Recruitment

25. We are still advertising for fixed term Environmental Health Officer position (12 month contract). The previous overseas candidate that was offered the role unfortunately fell through because of personal reasons.

26. A Senior EHO (David Golding) has recently resigned, ending his employment on 28th June 2019. The recruitment process has commenced to find a replacement.

Alcohol

Controlled Purchase Operation (CPO)

27. A CPO was undertaken on the evening of 18th May 2019, in conjunction with the New Zealand Police and Regional Public Health. Thirteen licensed premises were visited, resulting in two premises failing by selling alcohol to a minor. It is thought prudent not to name the premises at this stage, as the matter will soon before the courts for suspension or cancellation of manager’s certificates and alcohol licenses.

28. After hours compliance checks were also carried out on three evenings, visiting a total of 32 premises. The level of compliance was generally satisfactory. Letters of congratulations will be sent to those fully complying, while requisition letters will be sent to those requiring various items to be remedied.

Bylaws

29. Submissions closed on 31 May 2019 for the proposed Appearance Industry Bylaw. The results of the pre-consultation will be presented to the Hutt Valley Shared Services Committee, including a draft bylaw. Feedback thus far, particularly from within the industries themselves has been very positive for such a bylaw. Meetings will be held with submitters and stakeholders to discuss appropriate standards and guidelines in order to establish a draft bylaw and code of practice, for presenting to the Committee.

30. On 21 May 2019, Council agreed with the Alcohol Hearings Subcommittee to put the proposed Alcohol Fees bylaw out for public consultation. Submissions closed on 28 June 2019.

Food

31. There are currently two food premise operators with outstanding registration fees and these are being actively followed up by officers. These are Brew’d Boulcott and Valley Caterers. The next step is an infringement fine.

Noise

32. The noise control/smoke nuisance contract tender process is complete and the contract has been awarded to First Security Guard Services Limited. Recon Security, the incumbent contractor was the only other tenderer but was not successful. Officers are working through operational aspects with First Security in order to ensure a smooth transition when the contract commences on 1 July 2019.

Litter

33. As from 5 May 2019, there were changes to the recycling collection of plastics from kerbside and from the five recycling stations. Only plastics 1 & 2 can now be recycled. Plastics 3,4,5,6 & 7 must go into the general waste. The plastics/cans bins were also removed from the recycling stations. Only cardboard, paper, glass bottles and jars can be left at the recycling stations now. The result is more plastic 1 & 2 is being put out for the kerbside collection and there has been continued dumping of general household waste at the recycling stations.

34. Recent monitoring of the recycling stations has resulted in an increase of Litter Infringement fines being issued in June: Naenae Recycling Station -24, Kelson-8 Wainuiomata-5, and Alicetown-3 = Total 40. This compares to a total of 8 infringement fines from January to the end of May. The significant increase is due to more intense monitoring during high-risk times of the day. The total infringements issued for 2018 calendar year was 111.

35. This was mostly for bags of non-recycling (food /nappies) sometimes dumped in the cardboard bin or around the bins.

Enforcement matters from Regulatory Services

Animal Services

36. It is dog registration time at Animal Services. This means employing three temporary staff for up to ten weeks to process the 21,000 dog registrations for Wellington and Lower Hutt.

37. This year Hutt City Council has offered electronic dog tags to owners. Doggone is an innovative new technology designed to help re-unite lost dogs with their owners.

38. At this stage, of the 3000 owners who have registered their dogs in Lower Hutt, approximately 50 percent have opted to pay $28 extra for the Doggone tag and app. The app goes live with a major upgrade on 30 June, one day before the dog registration year startsf

39. After the completion of the Wainui cycle way over the hill, you will see the start of the ground works for a dog park. The contractors for the cycle way have used the dog park as the site works office and storage facility for the cycle way. We are looking at early 2020 for the opening of the dog park.

40. The spike in the 2018/19 infringement graph is for dogs that have not been microchipped. It has been compulsory to microchip dogs since 2016.

Parking Services

41. For parking infringements that are paid, 78 percent are now paid on-line, 17 percent paid over the counter at Laings Rd, and 5 percent paid at a New Zealand Post shop.

42. Parking revenue is tracking slightly above the corresponding point as last year.

Emergency Management

43. Over the last three months Emergency Management has focused training on how to manage a coordinated response to a pandemic scenario. We have been working with the HVDHB, the regional coordination centre and the local Emergency Management Office to get consistent messaging and processes in place. This will come together in a full CDEM group annual exercise in November.

44. We will be running two full shifts to develop an effective Action Plan which will deliver the Controller’s objectives.

45. At the moment we are trialing seismic instruments in 11 different council buildings. This three month trial is to gauge any seismic activity on the buildings and better inform the building owner if they need to engage an engineer after any significant event. The trigger levels for all buildings are dictated by ground conditions, building and foundation type, and the severity of the earthquake event.

46. As part of the assessment process of understanding the types of seismic instruments available, a group of Council staff went to GNS in Avalon who have their own seismic monitoring system in Lower Hutt. This information is already available and accessible through a website.

47. GNS have just established a Natural Hazard 24/7 board room for monitoring the live activity for New Zealand.

48. Live data is shown on 20 screens, six screens with live video of volcanos’, earthquake monitoring throughout New Zealand (a 2.5 earthquake was recorded while we were there), tsunami monitoring for the Pacific Ocean and metrological monitoring.

49. This is state of the art technology and resourced 24/7 by three staff on duty, backed up by specialists in every natural hazard area. Information from this Centre informs the National/Regional/Local Civil Defence Centres.

Sustainability and Resilience Team

Strategic waste reviews

50. On 23 May 2019, a Council workshop was held to present and discuss the draft business cases for three waste management areas: (residential) hazardous waste, resource recovery, and kerbside recycling & refuse collection.

51. Following this work and feedback received, some further work is being undertaken by officers and our consultant Morrison Low Ltd to finalise the business cases.

52. At this stage, community consultation on the preferred options regarding kerbside recycling and refuse collection is scheduled to take place as part of the annual plan process in early 2020.

Implementation of Council’s organisational carbon target

53. A range of initiatives are under way, and officers are planning to provide a more comprehensive update on our carbon reduction work programme at the Policy & Regulatory Committee meeting in September 2019.

Lower Hutt Zero Carbon Plan

54. There is currently no plan for how Lower Hutt as a whole (not just HCC as an organisation) may reduce its emissions to zero by 2050 in line with the government’s target.

55. Scoping work for the development of a potential Lower Hutt Zero Carbon Plan is still under way. It will be important to ensure that this work aligns with the upcoming review of Council’s strategies (and the associated community engagement).

Community engagement on sea level rise

56. In its Long Term Plan, Council set aside $200,000 for the 2019/20 financial year to work with other councils in the region to map and identify places, communities and assets threatened by sea level rise, to develop response options and to begin engagement with Lower Hutt communities on the threat of climate change.

57. Community engagement will play an important part of this work, and as with the work on a potential Lower Hutt Zero Carbon Plan, it will be important to ensure that this work aligns with the upcoming review of Council’s strategies (and the associated community engagement), and also any review of the Lower Hutt District Plan.

Whaitua Te Whanganui-a-Tara Committee Update

58. The Whaitua Te Whanganui-a-Tara Committee continues its work.

59. The two Co-Chairs (Kara Puketapu-Dentice and Louise Askin) have been elected and the Committee has also established two subgroups – in the areas of communications and engagement and policy - to help advance the necessary work in these key areas, and it is likely that a third subgroup will be established to lead the Committee’s work in the science area.

60. Another important focus for the Committee, over the past several months, has been to develop and articulate the policy framework document that will underpin the Committee’s future actions and decisions. This work explicitly aligns the analytical policy framework that is typical of earlier Whaitua processes to tikanga and kawa. The draft document is nearing completion, after which it will need to be discussed with mana whenua in order to finalise it.

61. The project team, of which a council officer (David Burt) is a member, continues their support of both the full Committee and the subgroups. At the June meeting the project team provided the Committee with a draft, high level breakdown of the work that needs to be done before the end of next year if the project is to be completed on time.

62. With the first (establishment) phase of the Committee’s work almost complete, the next five month period (July – November 2019) will see the focus move to understanding the Whaitua, its state, values, activities, agencies and issues.

63. The first part of this work, and the focus at the next Committee meeting (on July 22) will be on understanding the importance of the Hutt River management, including flood protection and its relation to ecological state and outcomes in the Whaitua:

· Understanding the historical context

· Understanding the current state of the Hutt River and its management

· Understanding the competing uses that are currently in play

· To start to think about what could be done differently.

64. The development of the information to inform discussions will be led by GWRC and its Flood Protection Team, but Hutt City will have the opportunity to both have input into this process and to ensure that our views on the matters raised will be part of the discussion.

Consultation

65. Consultation was undertaken with affected parties on notified resource consents.

Legal Considerations

66. The group administers the RMA, the Building Act, LGOIMA, the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act, Food Act, associated bylaws and other legislation. No other legal considerations apply in terms of the content of this paper.

Financial Considerations

67. There are no financial considerations.

Appendices

No.	Title	Page
1 ⇩	Enforcement actions from Regulatory Services as at 31 May 2019	64
2 ⇩	Environmental Consents Graphs at 30 Jume 2019	66

Author: Geoff Stuart

Divisional Manager, Regulatory Services and Emergency Management

Author: Derek Kerite

Acting Divisional Manager, Environmental Consents

Author: Craig Ewart

Building Team Leader

Author: David Burt

Senior Advisor Sustainability and Resilience

Author: Jörn Scherzer

Manager, Sustainability and Resilience

Author: Dean Bentley

Team Leader Environmental Health

Approved By: Helen Oram

Acting General Manager, City Transformation

2 When acting in this capacity the committee has a quasi-judicial role.

Deputy Mayor D Bassett	Cr L Bridson
Cr C Barry	Cr J Briggs
Cr T Lewis	Cr M Lulich
Cr C Milne	Cr L Sutton
Mayor W R Wallace (ex-officio)

PARKING SERVICES	April	May
Infringements	2501	3386
Stationary offences (WOFs, tyres)	995	1131

Description	Author	Cycle 3, 2019	Cycle 4, 2019	Pending
General Manager’s report	H Oram	ü	ü
Activity Report: - City Growth and Sustainability – Environmental Consents	D Kerite	ü
Activity Report: - City Growth and Sustainability – Regulatory Services	G Stuart	ü
Control of Animals Bylaw – Council’s accountability for cats	G Sewell	ü
Update on the work to adapt to climate change impacts	J Scherzer	ü
Annual update on progress towards carbon targets and the wider climate change work	J Scherzer		ü
Refuse Collection and Disposal Bylaw update	J Scherzer		ü
Encroachment licences	G Sewell		ü
Smokefree Lower Hutt - Review	J Pritchard		ü
Feasibility of including old landfills in target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions	J Scherzer			ü
Climate and Resilience Plan and Coastal Adaptation Resilience Plan	J Scherzer			ü
Approval to issue a lease to Hutt Cricket Academy	A Marsh			ü
Traffic Bylaw – consideration of city-wide no parking on grass berms	W Moore / J Gloag			ü
Petitions relating to Council facilities	W Moore			ü
Control of Animals Bylaw – bees (Cycle 2, 2020)	G Sewell			ü
Discount registration for therapy dogs	L Dalton			ü
Risk and resilience costs update	W Moore			ü
Naenae Library site	B Hodgins			ü
Parking Policy review	J Pritchard			ü

ANIMAL SERVICES	April	May
Dogs impounded	44	71
Infringements issued	15	3
Prosecutions	0	0