The value of projects requiring building consents in Invercargill has increased 88% in the past 12 months, stretching the Invercargill City Council's building consents department to the brink.

In the 12-month period between September 2018 and August 2019, the value of consents lodged in the city totalled $147,463,205, up from $78,513,649 in the same period the year before.

The total number of consents lodged also increased by 22%, with 1548 between September 2018 and August 2019, up from 1269 the previous year.

ICC chief executive Claire Hadley said the increase meant that their already stretched consents department had handled nearly two years worth of consent value in a 12-month period.

She said it had been a challenging time for the council with consents.

"We lost quite a few staff in the period up until about September of last year. Some local authorities had restructured their remuneration for building officers... and we restructured the remuneration for our guys but we’d lost quite a few staff. We also had an increased number of consents and we had been calling out for (new) technology... and so you've got three things going at once that have made it really difficult."

Due to these events, which Mrs Hadley referred to as a "perfect storm", the council decided to contract Christchurch-based company Solutions to help it process consent applications. 

"It came clear to me that we needed assistance and actually if we were to be customer facing and worrying about delivering to guys we needed to get a contract in place. So I don’t think there's anyone in town that would disagree that getting Solutions team involved has been critical to continue to deliver service."

Thirty-five percent of applications between September 2018 and August 2019 were outsourced to Christchurch, with applications delivered via courier in paper form to Solutions before having to be sent back to the ICC for them to have the final sign off.

However with a 20 business day statutory turn-around for consent applications, Mrs Hadley said it could be a frustrating and difficult process for applicants, which council tried their best to work through with them.

"I do really understand that a delay in building consents can cost people money and I understand that that comes about as a result of a number of factors... I’ve endeavoured to address that by putting a contract in place so that I can keep responding to the local community."

The council is currently actively recruiting new staff to the consents department, with around six new employees needed to help them operate at full capacity.

Jobs ads have been posted right across New Zealand as well as internationally in an attempt to bring new people in to help them cope with the increased demand.

Garry Bell, who was recently appointed as interim building and planning services manager, said he had been impressed with how the department had coped with the increases since he had come on board.

"There’s some very complex activity occurring in the region... a lot of private companies are now really shoulder tapping a lot of people from local government... it's been difficult. So to get those results in this environment is actually quite remarkable."

This week the council introduced electronic inspections to be used during a consent application, which both Mrs Hadley and Mr Bell said would help improve the application process moving forward.

Mrs Hadley said the council had been slow to adopt new technology in the past but she was happy that this was now changing.

"It's unfortunate that we've got into doing it at the same time as we've got more buildings consents than ever coming through and fewer staff than ever. But we're really confident that what this will mean is more capability for the staff."