Cardno's private landowner clients regularly request assistance obtaining resource consents for a new house or other building on a lifestyle block in a rural area. This often requires applications to a Regional Council as well as a City or District Council because access to the new building site has to cross a stream or involves earthworks with the potential to discharge silt into a watercourse. Cardno engineers become involved in the design of on-site waste water treatment systems fort the new houses, and checking a suitable drinking water supply can be obtained. Staff also provide input where access has to be formed across a site to a new building site (eg surveying to obtain site contours, engineering design of culvert crossings and design of earthworks for the site access and erosion and sediment control measures).

Rural houses generally require careful attention because District Plan rules are often focussed on protecting open areas and significant landscape values. Applications therefore have to address the effects on rural character and amenity, offer screen planting, and sensitive earthworks that do not scar the landscape. House and other building sites need to be located below skylines and buildings need to have recessive colours. Cardno often works with a landscape architect or architect on rural projects to ensure Councils have no concerns. Cardno has obtained consents for rural houses and buildings, and a helicopter hangar in the Porirua area, rural houses and a child care centre in Wellington.

Some applications require consultation with other parties, including neighbours or the Department of Conservation and this is built into the application process by Cardno planners.

Two Lot Subdivision

- Iron Gate Road, Hawkes Bay

Cardno assisted Park Avenue Flats Limited in obtaining resource consents to create two lots from a site and to establish an industrial activity on one of the new allotments. The issue for the Council in approving the proposal was that the land being in the Plains Zone was valued for its productive soils and the proposal was an industrial activity on a scale not foreseen in the Plains Zone.

Cardno worked with the client and provided historical and soil testing information on the site to demonstrate to the Council that in fact it was a former road excavation clean fill site and had not productive values. The proposed warehouse style building was of similar scale to the permitted coolstore buildings but would be used for a timber product refining business. The effects of the business in terms of noise, traffic and building appearance would be similar to the permitted baseline for the Plains Zone.

Additional information was provided on noise effects at the subsequent hearing, and the hours of operation were amended along with part of the building roof design and actual position on the site. The Council approved the application as amended. A subsequent appeal from a submitter on an adjoining property was resolved through mediation.

The Woolshed - All Track Adventures

Ohariu Farm (and their subsidiary adventure/event based companies) operate from Takarau Gorge Road in Wellington and have won numerous awards for their contribution adventure tourism etc and in recognition of their professional management approach.

Cardno was involved in obtaining resource consents for commercial Quad Bike outings on the farm, and for later consents as the business expanded to meet changing market demands.

The most recent consents rationalized the existing consented operations and allowed for further expansion allowing the company to offer a comprehensive package of events and activities including weddings, conferences, champagne breakfasts, honeymoon retreat weekends in a choice of two boutique cottages, Unimog trips high wire rope courses, clay bird shooting, 4WD training, and archery to name a few. The kitchen in the luxury Woolshed complex was expanded to allow on-site catering and full bar facilities for events up to 200 people, with a stage for a band or DJ depending on the client package. Cardno assisted the client with consultation with adjoining neighbours and obtained non-notified resource consents for the existing and future proposed operations.

Tuatara Childcare Centre

- 95 Park Road, Miramar, Wellington

CJ2 Investments Limited engaged Cardno to prepare applications for resource consent for an urban childcare centre which would utilize an existing house on a corner site in Mirimar. Renovations and additions to the house allowed for more internal space and an outside deck area, with parking for the Centre staff. An essential part of the application was the input from noise consultant Marshall Day Acoustics. The proposal was able to be treated as a Controlled Activity under the Wellington City District Plan because it was able to be shown that the noise from the activity could be attenuated through building materials and positioning of activities on the site away from other residences. The site is a corner site and adjoins a driveway and has a shop on the next property. With this separation distance from residential properties, the noise issues were less of a concern.

Consent was granted for the proposal subject to standard conditions on site fencing and landscape planting.

Limavady Lip Limited

- Fine Dining Restaurant and Irish Bar in Picton CBD

Cardno prepared an application to Marlborough District Council for resource consent to alter the ground floor of an existing commercial building and re-develop it as two separate businesses (a fine dining restaurant called Moraes, and a small cosy Irish style bar called Seamus). The site had no room for off-street parking and therefore triggered the need to obtain a resource consent. The consent was successfully obtained, after negotiation of a suitable consent condition requiring payment of a financial contribution towards the public parking facility nearby.

New Corporate Signage

- for Scientific Software & Systems Limited, Petone Esplanade, Lower Hutt

Cardno obtained resource consent for a blade-format entry sign for SSS (similar to the plan above) and two large format box-light signs advertising the stockmarket software product "SecuritEase", one on either side of the building on the Petone foreshore at Lower Hutt (shown in the above photograph). The Hutt City Council approved the proposal as a Controlled Activity and the new corporate signs were in place soon after.

Normally these types of signs would have been a permitted activity in the General Business Zone. But the application site is on one of the main entrance routes to Lower Hutt City and Council has set rules in the District Plan requiring consents so they can consider the potential visual and traffic aspects of any signage proposals.