Subdividing land

Your agent can include a surveyor or a resource management consultant.

Note - a surveyor is required to undertake the final survey plan for Section 223 approval for you.

Talk to our duty planner to determine if the land has subdivision potential in the District Plan.

They will determine the complexity or any issues surrounding your specific site and give you a preliminary idea of the reports that will need to be provided with the application.

Either you or your agent need to engage the necessary engineering professionals and/or experts to prepare the required supplementary information to go with your application. These can include but not limited to the following:

• Geotechnical report
• Necessary information to adequately address relevant National Standards
• Onsite wastewater assessment
• Stormwater assessment
• Service capacity information
• Engineering plans for servicing, the access and roading for more complex subdivisions.
• Landscaping and visual amenity assessment.

Once the subdivision consent has been granted, you have:

• 5 years to obtain a Section 223 certificate - final survey plan
• And an additional 3 years to obtain a Section 224 certificate - certification that all the relevant conditions of consent required to be completed prior to title have been completed.

Or you can apply for both at the same time.

When you want to proceed with completing the subdivision

You need to engage the necessary contractors to complete the onsite construction work to meet consent conditions. This is required to be completed prior to Section 224 approval.

The Land Transfer Plan becomes a deposited plan and LINZ will issue the Records of Title for the new land parcels.

You will need to instruct your agent to proceed with lodging the Section 223 and 224 approvals to Council.  These can be done together or separately.

Once the s223 and s224 certificates have been issued, you need to request your agent to provide the relevant documents to your solicitor.

Your solicitor submits the legal documents that support the land transfer process to Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) and requests the issue of the new records title.

Once you have engaged an agent, they will prepare the proposed detailed subdivision scheme plan and a full subdivision consent application as per the requirements of Section 88 of the Resource Management Act 1991.

They will act as your agent throughout the Council processes.

You or your agent will obtain the additional supplementary information that needs to be supplied with a subdivision application, these can include but are not limited to the following:

• Geotechnical report
• Necessary information to adequately address relevant National Standards
• Onsite wastewater assessment
• Stormwater assessment
• Service capacity information
• Engineering plans for servicing, the access, and roading for a more complex subdivision.
• Landscaping and visual amenity assessment.

Your agent lodges the subdivision consent application to Council on your behalf and will manage any requests for further information.

Should notification be required - this usually only relates to complex consent applications, and should a hearing be required, your agent will lead representing you and present key evidence at a hearing.

Discuss the implications of notification with our duty planner.

Provided Council's planner believes the effects from the subdivision are less than minor the application will be granted.

Your agent may first receive a copy of draft conditions for comment, then your agent will receive a copy of the decision, conditions of consent and the approved plan.

When directed by the you, your surveyor will begin to prepare the cadastral survey dataset (CDS) that also contains a Digital Survey Plan (Land Transfer Plan – LT Plan) – the final survey plan.

Once the CSD (final survey plan) is prepared, you instruct your agent to apply for either a Section 223 (final survey plan approval) by itself, or if all the required consent conditions to be met prior to title have also been completed, the agent can apply to Council for a combined Section 223 and Section 224 certificate.

Once a Section 223 is granted, your agent will lodge the LT plan with LINZ for processing and “Approval as to Survey”.

Once your agent receives the completed Section 223 and 224 certificates they'll provide your solicitor with the required documents to undertake the legal component of the process.

If the proposed subdivision is complex, your agent will organise a pre-application meeting with Council's planning and engineering staff.

When the application is lodged into Council with the deposit fee, it's then checked for completeness under s88 of the RMA.

Once accepted your agent will be sent an acknowledgement letter.

The application is then entered into our system and allocated to a planner for processing.

The application will be circulated to the required technical staff for comment.

If the technical staff or the processing planner needs further information that’s not provided with the application, this will be requested under s92 of the RMA. The application is placed on hold until that information has been provided and accepted.

If the subdivision is complex, the planner may provide your agent with the recommended draft consent conditions prior to the consent being granted.

Provided the planner believes that the effects from the subdivision are less than minor the consent will be granted subject to a host of conditions.

Some of the conditions will be required to be completed prior to the Section 224 certificate being issued. These conditions usually relate to servicing the new lots net area, the creation of new accessways and vehicle crossings.

Some conditions may be Consent Notice conditions. These conditions are tied to the new title and relate to information or standards that are required to be met at building consent stage.

The final decision, conditions, and approved plans are sent to your agent along with the invoice.

Council operates a user-pays policy for processing resource consent applications. The invoice is for actual and reasonable costs plus disbursements to process your application, over and above the deposit amount paid at lodgment.

Your agent will lodge the s223 and s224 certifications for processing.

Section 224 conditions are checked by our engineer as part of this process.

The finalised s223 and s224 certificates including any Consent Notice and digital certifications are sent to your agent.

Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA): The legislation that all subdivision consents are processed under.

Agent: the person/company you engage to prepare the subdivision application and manage the Council process on your behalf.  This may be a surveyor or resource management consultant.

Section 88 of the RMA: The information criteria required to be supplied with all resource consent applications including subdivision.

Further information request:  This is referred to as a Section 92 request. If additional information is needed to process a consent application, this will be requested and the application will remain on hold until that information has been supplied and accepted as complete.

Section 223 certificate: Council certification process relating to the final survey plan which must be supplied by a cadastral surveyor.

Section 224 certificate: Council certification process which ensured all the conditions of the subdivision that are required to be meet prior to title have been met and to the required standard.

LINZ: Land Information New Zealand is the Wellington based office that issue to new certificates of title.

Reticulated to the net area: Services are required to be brought in from the road to the net area of any new lots.

National Environmental Standards (NES):
The most common NES relevant to subdivision is the NES for Assessing and Managing Contaminated Land to Protect Human Health.
It must be determined if new lots for residential use are unlikely to have been used for a hazardous activity or industry (HAIL).  
The 2 ways prescribed in the NES to determine if a site is HAIL is to obtain either a Search of Council Records (SoCR), apply on our website.
Or a Preliminary Site Investigation (PSI) which must be prepared by a suitability qualified and experienced person in the area of land contamination.  
Most people start with a SoCR and depending on the outcome of the SoCR a PSI may still be necessary.
Depending on information contained in the PSI, testing (a detailed site investigation) may also be required.
Your agent can go over this with you and determine what’s necessary for your particular application.