The Christchurch City Council has been chosen to run a new national one stop consenting service for large scale supermarket developments, a change Finance Minister Nicola Willis says will attract new competitors and help drive down grocery prices across New Zealand.
Willis said Christchurch was selected to oversee supermarket building consents nationwide after a competitive process run by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
“They essentially looked at what is the track record of the building consent process at Christchurch Council. How have they done on these sorts of developments in the past. Do we think that they had the chops to do it in the future and do it well. And Christchurch came out top of the pack,” she said.
She said the decision was based on capability, timeliness, efficiency, customer focus, and consistency.
Willis rejected the idea that the council’s consenting team might not be busy enough.
“I do not think it is that. It is that there is enough expertise in Christchurch that any new application could plug and play into their existing capability,” she said.
The government’s goal is to reduce barriers for new supermarket chains looking to enter the country, she said, describing New Zealand’s current system as a maze of different rules.
“We have got that big duopoly. One of the things our government has focused on is what is stopping a new entrant coming in. Because you have to apply under one set of rules in one part of the country and another set somewhere else. Up to sixty six different sets of rules and processes. That is very daunting.”
She said the new national authority would allow developers of large supermarkets to deal with one approving body instead of dozens.
“We will clear the decks of the red tape. We will make it as simple as possible. We are rolling out the red carpet saying we really want supermarket competitors and we are going to make it easy.”
Willis said that, in practice, developers often use the same design nationwide, meaning Christchurch could approve the core structure once.
“They have a particular size scale warehouse structure that they like to do. They can put in their basic plan for multiple locations. Christchurch can say yes it does meet the requirements,” she said.
Willis linked the new system to the government’s broader plans to overhaul the resource management framework and reduce complexity for homeowners and businesses.
“We have listened to New Zealanders who have told us that getting permission from your council just takes too long. It is too expensive. It is too uncertain. So we have multiple reforms happening.”
She said the government will introduce its promised policy to control council rates before Christmas.
“It will be a little pre Christmas treat for everyone,” she said. “Rates come up again and again. We are not convinced there is enough control on how councils are expanding their spending.”
Willis said reforming the consenting system was about restoring confidence to ratepayers.
“Our view has been that sure, councils need to build infrastructure, but we want to create more confidence for ratepayers that they are going to get more value in the future.”
Willis closed by reaffirming the government’s emphasis on property rights in its reforms.
“Private property rights is where you start. If people have land and they wish to develop it in a certain way, we need to be very careful before the government puts so much red tape in the way that they cannot do that.”
