LGOIMA Request Details

Hi Hadyn,

Here is the information as requested for the consenting of BC 127936 for 6 Peka Road.  The consent application was for a wool shed designed for sheep shearing and covered yard. The value of the building work was stated as $170,000. The building structure was 39.8m x 16.4m – a large building which was an engineered design. The design engineer was not a registered engineer.

The engineering component of the consent application was peer reviewed in accordance with our BCA procedures by GHD (our consulting engineers).  This is standard with many medium to small sized councils as there is often not in house expertise.  Mr Baker has been aware throughout the process of the non-compliances and our fees and charges state the engineering review is at actual cost.

Council’s regulatory manager had a meeting at our offices Mr Baker on 17 July 2019 to discuss his concerns about the charges for the engineering review. He was advised that the manager would investigate the process and respond to him.
The manager received a summary of the compliance issues relating to the design from the reviewing engineer and copies of the RFI email trail between building officer, peer review engineer and applicant’s engineer.

The following list includes the dates that I have responded to Mr Baker:
+  19/7/2019 – email to J Baker explaining requests for information from the engineer.
+  23/7/2019 – email response to J Baker confirming Council’s position as stated in the initial email
+  23/7/2019 – email response to J Baker advising the invoice is a record of the ‘account’ and also   attached a record of the time spent on the consent by the reviewing engineer from the Council system.
+  25/7/2019 – email response to J Baker explaining council process and advising that he seek recompense from his own engineer.
+  5/12/2019 – email response to J Baker to reconfirm council’s position, that the charges are justified and payment is due.
+  6/12/2019 – email response to J Baker attaching 2 reports form the council consent processing system for consent time recording and RFI detailed report.

Attached is a copy of all correspondence referred to above, reports and invoice provided to J Baker. The review engineer charge out rate is typical of the rates for this service and is the same or similar to other councils.

In summary, we are required by law to assess the design for compliance.

The design of this building was not in accordance with an acceptable solution under the building code and required engineering peer review.

The design documentation in the application did not demonstrate compliance with the building code and took significant time and effort to reach a compliant design.
The Council invoice format is standardised in terms of officer rates and hours but Mr Baker has also been sent further reports detailing the time allocated in the system and extent of the RFI information.

Attachements:
E-mail communications with Mr Baker
Engineer summary and RFI emails