Christchurch named one-stop shop for supermarket consenting

Christchurch City Council has been selected to serve as the one-stop consenting authority for the country’s large scale supermarket developments.

In August, the Government announced a single, streamlined building consenting process would be established for grocery stores and a single building consenting authority would be selected to standardise the processes for supermarkets and help enable competition regionally or nationally.  

Today, the Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced the Council has been selected as the building consenting authority.  

“This is a significant endorsement of the Council’s building consenting expertise, we’re so thrilled that this has been recognised by the Government and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment,” Council Head of Building Consenting Steffan Thomas said.

“Our team has put in a huge amount of effort to get to this point and it has been worth it. We’ve come a long way from having our building consenting accreditation stripped, to now leading the country in this space.”  

The Council participated in an expression of interest process which assessed capability, track record, timeliness, efficiency and customer focus.

Mr Thomas said the Council has worked closely with the commercial development community to streamline its processes.

“We’re seen as a leader in commercial building consenting so it’s fantastic to see the strength of our proposal recognised in this way.”  

The service will cover new, standalone buildings bigger than 500m2 for grocery businesses, which aren’t Regulated Grocery Retailers such as Foodstuffs and Woolworths, as well as any developments which have come through the Fast-track Approvals process.