Project Information Memorandum

It also may include information on additional approvals required by other Acts or services such as:

• Whether any Resource Consents are required under the Resource Management Act 1991
• Obligations under the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014 
• New Zealand Fire Service Commission requirements 
• Requirements for an evacuation scheme (section 21A Fire Service Act 1975)
• Whether a development contribution is required (Local Government Act 2002)

Finally, there will be either:

• confirmation that the building work may be carried out subject to the requirements of a building consent/other necessary authorisations
• notification that building work may not be carried out because a necessary authorisation has been refused (regardless of the issue of consent)

The owner makes an application to the Territorial Authority in order to receive a PIM.

The Territorial Authority must issue the PIM within 20 working days of receiving the application, and may also make requests for more information, which stops the timer until the information is received.

PIMs can be reissued if there is an error or omission discovered (section 34(4) Building Act).

Note that a PIM is different from a LIM.

PIMs and LIMs are both issued by your local council. The main difference is that the PIM is specific to a proposed project – hence the name Project Information Memorandum. Whereas the Land Information Memorandum (LIM) gives information on the council's files on land and buildings that already exist.

Monticello Holdings Ltd v Selwyn District Council [2015] NZHC 1674

• This case informs whether a territorial authority owes a duty of care to an owner who applies for a project information memorandum to ensure the memorandum is accurate.

Westland District Council v York [2014] NZCA 59

• This case examined the issue of whether the location of an earthquake fault ought to have been disclosed as a “special features of the land” in a LIM (This requirement for a LIM is similar to a PIM.)

Rawlings v Pilcher [2014] NZEnvC 49

• This case involves the lack of a section 37 notice, and whether it ought to have been issued regarding resource consent.

Auckland City Council v Selwyn Mew Ltd DC Auckland CRN2004067301, 4 July 2003

• This case inquires as to whether a statement in an Assessment of Environmental Effects report under RMA91 that a site “is not included on the [council’s] register of known sites with geotechnical problems” was evidence that there were no such problems.

Nanden v Wellington City Council [2000] NZRMA 562(HC)

• This case concerns the duties under section 35 in relation to the doctrine of estoppel.

Bronlund v Thames Coromandel District Council CA190/98, 26 August 1999

• Pre-Building Act 1991. This case examined whether a council was negligent because necessary planning information had not been entered on the property and information index card.

2017/062: Regarding the grant of a building consent with a section 37 certificate for a house.

• Building consent with a section 37 certificate that failed to identify an infringement of District Plan, whether authority had  power to issue a section 37 certificate after the building consent had been granted, referred to Rawlings v Pilcher [2014]