PHOTO: PETER MEECHAM/STUFF Infometrics chief forecaster Gareth Kiernan said it was hard to explain the gap between consents being issued and properties finished.
Property developer Hasan Khan estimates that council delays have cost him $500,000 over his career.
“It has got worse now than it was four years ago. We were all rooting for the merge of all the council in one mega city, thinking it will improve things. All it did was to bring all the bad practises of different bodies in one super bureaucracry.”
In one case, it took a month and 20 days for council to reply to an email asking which version of a plan had been approved. A contractor who was held up by the delay is now threatening to sue him.
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