File ref: IRC-6715
25 July 2024
Brooklyn Resident
[FYI request #27509 email]
Kia ora,
Shipping Container Resource Consent Applications
Thank you for your request made under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings
Act 1987 (the Act), received on 5 July 2024. You requested the fol owing information:
Please provide a schedule/table of Resource Consent Applications that have been applied for that relate in
some manner to Shipping Containers within the Wel ington region over the past 5 years.
The fol owing attributes/columns are requested in the returned list:
•
When:
•
(Q/YR)
•
Where:
•
Zone Category (Urban, Rural, other)
•
Zone Name
•
Initiated by:
o
Applicant
o
Complaint (neighbour or similar)
•
Inspection: City initiated inspection/abatement or other WCC officer
•
Issue: If a complaint or infringement, the issue requiring remediation.
•
Quantity: (of containers)
•
Sum Area: total area of containers
•
Purpose (of containers)
•
Rural Industry (e.g.: indoor mushroom cultivation, etc.)
•
Rural storage (seeds, tools, etc.)
•
Residential Storage (Furniture, Equipment, Seed, etc.)
•
Lodgings & type (e.g., temporary/camping, fulltime, other)
•
Request processed by:
o
WCC
o
GWRC
o
Other (please specify)
•
Remediation required (if an infringement/issue specified)
•
Request Outcome (whether granted or denied)
•
Notes: a succinct summary of any pertinent notes regarding conditions & outcome
•
Cost: overall application cost expended
•
Remediation: what actions were imposed if not granted.
•
Location*
* We believe an address would permit verification of the returned data, while passing the test of not
disclosing personal information of any specific individual.
Wellington City Council has refused
your request for information.
On consultation with the Council’s Resource Consents team into your request for information
made relating to shipping containers, it has been confirmed that the team do not hold data to the
level of detail required to easily confirm the information you are seeking.
Resource consents are recorded in the team’s database, and the fol owing is some of the fields
used in their reporting, which includes:
• SR (Service Request) Number
• Street Number
• Street Name
• Description – e.g. a high level description of what the consent relates to
• Current Status – e.g. cancelled, completed etc.
However, there is no field which confirms if a resource consent lodged relates directly to a
shipping container.
In order to confirm the information that you have requested, council officers will need to manually
check each individual record to confirm if it relates to a shipping container and therefore in scope
of your request. This would take considerable time for officers to manually search and collate the
information you have requested over a substantial period of time, 5 years. For context there is
approximately 4500 number of resources consents recorded over the time period requested.
We are therefore refusing your request under section 17(f) of the Act due to the substantial
manual collation and research involved. In making my decision, I have considered the public
interest considerations in section 7(1) of the Act and determined there are no public interests
which outweigh the grounds for refusing this information due to the substantial col ation involved.
Council officers were able to undertake a high level search using the data available to them by
searching the word ‘container’ against the description field mentioned above. Officers were able
to confirm a total of four consents which had this word in the description field, all of which related
to the use of containers; however, we can’t confidently confirm there are no more consents
relating to shipping containers without manual y checking each individual record in more detail. If
you would like the information that you have requested relating to these four consents found
within this high level search, please let me know.
Whilst we are unable to fulfil your request as it stands, if you were to consider refining your
request to a specific location which has a shipping container that you’d like more information on, I
can approach officers to undertake a search.
Right of review
If you are not satisfied with the Council’s response, you may request the Office of the Ombudsman
to investigate the Council’s decision. Further information is available on the Ombudsman website,
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz.
Please note, we may proactively release our response to your request with your personal
information removed.
Wellington City Council | 2 of 3
Thank you again for your request,
Kind regards
Ollie Marchant
Senior Advisor
Official Information
Wellington City Council | 3 of 3
