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211: Powers of District Court on appeal
or “The court can change, agree with, or ask for another look at decisions made by the boss of a government department.”
You could also call this:

“The city council must check and approve building plans in its area, except for dams.”

Your local council must act as a building consent authority in your area. This means they handle applications for building consents and grant them. They do this for your district and any nearby coastal marine areas that aren’t part of another council’s district.

When you apply for a building consent, your council will look at your application. If they approve it, they will give you a building consent. This rule doesn’t apply to dams, though.

Your council also has to send a copy of some building consent applications to Fire and Emergency New Zealand. The types of applications they need to send are specified in section 46.

Your council can give some or all of its building consent duties to another council if it wants to. If it does this, it doesn’t have to act as a building consent authority for those duties anymore.

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Next up: 213: Territorial authority may make arrangements relating to functions of building consent authority

or “Local councils can do building consent work themselves or get other groups to help them”
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Part 3 Regulatory responsibilities and accreditation
Responsibilities of territorial authorities: Functions, duties, and powers of territorial authorities generally

212Territorial authority must act as building consent authority for its district

  1. A territorial authority must perform the functions of a building consent authority within its district, and for any coastal marine area (within the meaning of the Resource Management Act 1991) adjacent to its district that is not within the district of another territorial authority, in relation to—

  2. any application for a building consent made to the territorial authority; and
    1. any building consent granted under that application.

      1. Subsection (1) does not apply in the case of dams.

      2. A territorial authority must, in performing its functions as a building consent authority, provide to Fire and Emergency New Zealand a copy of every application for a building consent of a kind specified by notice under section 46.

      3. Subsection (1)—

      4. is subject to the territorial authority's power to transfer, under section 233, any or all of its functions, duties, or powers under this Act to another territorial authority; and
        1. does not apply to any function so transferred by the territorial authority.

          Notes
          • Section 212 heading: amended, on , by section 17(1) of the Building Amendment Act 2005 (2005 No 31).
          • Section 212(1): amended, on , by section 6 of the Resource Management (Natural and Built Environment and Spatial Planning Repeal and Interim Fast-track Consenting) Act 2023 (2023 No 68).
          • Section 212(1): amended, on , by section 17(2) of the Building Amendment Act 2005 (2005 No 31).
          • Section 212(3): replaced, on , by section 26 of the Building Amendment Act 2009 (2009 No 25).
          • Section 212(3): amended, on , by section 197 of the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Act 2017 (2017 No 17).