Summer Holiday is Consultation Season: Submission Fatigue
Summer Holiday is Consultation Season: Submission Fatigue.
There are loads of consultations that affect small developers in Auckland. We build around 80% of the in-fill housing. Loads of us, small and just trying to “get on” with delivering what was once possible. At one point there were around eight that I could have responded to and was reminded for two. Each one is “lotsa” pages and takes days to respond to properly. AI cannot help, other than for formatting. Submissions are not summarising. It is reading, literature review, experience, and thought. Trying to make it make sense.
Recently I was asked if I would respond to yet another one. I said no. I will be saying no to all that are coming at me for the foreseeable future. My last was the FENZ one. The producers of them get paid, including, I expect, the groups reviewing them. I am running a property development business with voluntary advocacy on the side. Not the other way around.
I can’t readily bulk up my back-office. Several seem to come out in November. This time I picked up and focused on the Development Contributions Levy. Last year it was the Development Contributions for Auckland and that was heavy going. They wanted responses in February (?). That was over my own break time too. I was also preparing two other extensive documents and travelling to spend time with my family outside of NZ and swiping stray drones away.
As I was doing some reading around the Veolia contract (yes, loads and loads of reading goes into what I do), I noted that the Auditor-General called this out in 1998. But it was deemed as accepted including the timing but not ideal.
Who responds? Likely few of us small ones. Larger groups reflect their bigger members. Shout out to UDINZ though, lower cost to join and they genuinely represent small developers. SANZ tries. The Electricity Authority phoned me once for an interview instead of expecting a written response. Brilliant, can we have more of that please.
In doing the Development Levies response, I found multiple documents that had dealt with the topic in the past. It hadn’t been built up well in the consultation document. It was the same story as iterated in previous times.
I have stepped back now. Not because I do not care. I cannot keep up. If the only voices heard are the ones that can afford to be there, what is consultation actually for?
I wonder too, that those doing the preparation, we talk, we give feedback, they do a good job and then get promoted. Next minute, a new review, a new person, and the “memory” has gone.
For me it is one key issue at a time. That is all.
