North Shore Community Groups to Benefit from New Initiatives

North Shore’s community groups are set to benefit from a new Council policy to provide for increased grants for consent application charges, says Harbour Ward Councillor and Chair of the Strategy and Finance Committee, Grant Gillon.

"The policy (proposed by Grant Gillon and seconded by His Worship Andrew Williams) allows community boards to provide a grant for both building and resource consent fees." Grant Gillon said.

"North Shore’s groups are going through hard times in the current economic situation and need some support to continue providing services to our community”

Community groups embarking on building or other capital projects might need to gain a resource consent to comply with the Resource Management Act as well as a building consent to ensure compliance with the District Plan. Until now, they have only been able to get a grant to cover resource consent and not building consents.

“Even then the cap is on the grant at $1000. This policy has not changed since 1999 and charges have risen considerably over the last 9 years”

" Recently, a local playcentre was stung with huge compliance costs to renovate their playground and I was disappointed that the Birkenhead/Northcote Community Board was only able to offer the maximum $1000 assistance. This new proposal lifts the cap to $2500 to cover both resource and building consents with the objective of providing extra assistance to community groups. " said Grant Gillon.

“The groups still need to apply through their community boards as is the present policy." Grant Gillon said.

"I was disappointed that some councillors opposed the new limits and wanted to retain them at $1000. Fortunately for our valued community groups the majority view supported the increase," Grant Gillon said.