Rural Quarry, Whangarei District

This quarry had been operating legally for many years, but had recently had to obtain a land-use consent from the Council. Once the consent was granted, Council required a significant development contribution because of the traffic it claimed the quarry was generating.

Dean's client, the quarry owner, engaged him to prepare a report showing why a significant reduction in the fee was appropriate. Dean did this by comparing the traffic from the operation with the pre-consent (permitted) traffic generation. Dean also evaluated which roads were used by the quarry trucks and found that they only made up a very small fraction of the work the Council had used as input to its transport development contribution charge. As a result of Dean's report, the Council cancelled its contributions assessment. The saving to Dean's client was more than 15 times the amount of his fee.