New Zealand Building Consent Data Aggregator Without Contacting Council

Consenty is a New Zealand building and resource consent data aggregator. It lets users search the available council records held by the platform without visiting separate council websites or contacting each council for an initial search.

What a consent data aggregator does.

New Zealand councils publish consent information in different formats, with different field names and update schedules. One council may publish PDFs, another CSV files, and another may separate applications received from decisions issued. Searching each source individually takes time and makes cross-council comparison difficult.

Consenty collects available public records, normalises important fields and retains the source council. Depending on the source, a record can include an address, status, consent or service-request number, dates, consent type, applicant or agent, legal parcel and a description of the proposed work.

Finding a consent should not require opening another service-desk ticket.

Contacting council remains the right step when an official file, authoritative answer or professional clarification is needed. But many people never reach that point because the first enquiry feels uncertain: they do not know which team to email, what record to request or which reference number council needs.

Others are reluctant to create another council interaction. They may worry that their name, email address or correspondence could become part of a council record or later be disclosed, feel frustrated about paying substantial rates while still having to navigate an unfamiliar service desk, or have had poor experiences reporting matters such as noise, roads or local maintenance. A consent enquiry is easily placed in the “too hard” basket.

Most consent activity does not justify that effort.

A replacement fireplace, renovated bathroom or other routine work may be useful context without affecting a neighbour’s daily life. Homeowners and renters are more likely to investigate subdivisions, major earthworks, multi-unit developments, demolition or substantial new buildings that could change construction noise, traffic, privacy, sunlight, outlook or the character of the street.

Consenty makes the first screening step easier. Search the available summary, decide whether the work matters to you, and only request the complete council-held file when the detail is worth pursuing.

Free local research or complete Consenty+ search.

The free plan monitors one address within 250 metres and emails you when a matching consent is received or approved. Your account also includes local map search, two saved favourites and full details for alerts linked to your monitored address.

Consenty+ costs $25 NZD monthly or $20 per month when $240 is billed yearly. It includes one council document request each month with no rollover; additional resource-consent requests cost $19. A free user can order a resource-consent file for $25, while building-consent file prices may vary by council.

Ask Consenty turns a question into a map search.

Ask Consenty is included with Consenty+. Instead of guessing the exact words used by every council, describe the type of work you want to find. Consenty extracts useful terms, searches the consent data and returns matching properties on the map.

• “Show properties with swimming pools.”Search descriptions for pool-related work and return matching consent records.
• “Find subdivisions near this address.”Look for subdivision and lot-related descriptions in the relevant map area.
• “Show new dwellings approved recently.”Combine work-type terms with status and date context.
• “Find consents involving this agent.”Search available applicant or agent information where the source council supplies it.

Ask Consenty is a focused search assistant, not a general-purpose planning opinion. It searches the records Consenty holds and remains subject to coverage, data quality and plan limits.

Use consent data through a read-only MCP connection.

Model Context Protocol, or MCP, provides a standard way for a compatible AI client to call an external tool. Consenty Max exposes a read-only consent-search tool through OAuth, allowing approved clients such as Claude, ChatGPT, Codex and other compatible systems to request focused consent information.

The benefit is not merely another chat box. MCP allows consent search to sit inside an existing research workflow: an AI assistant can ask for a council, date range, consent type, status, address, suburb or relevant work description, then receive structured records from Consenty.

{
  "query": {
    "council": "South Wairarapa District Council",
    "status": "approved",
    "from": "2026-08-01",
    "to": "2026-08-31",
    "keywords": ["subdivision"],
    "limit": 50
  },
  "meta": {
    "records_returned": 12,
    "credits_used": 12,
    "read_only": true
  },
  "results": [
    {
      "reference": "RC260184",
      "status": "Approved",
      "consent_type": "Subdivision",
      "decision_date": "2026-08-14"
    }
  ]
}

Why MCP access is bounded rather than a bulk export.

Consent data has commercial value, and unlimited extraction would make it easy to copy the entire database through a series of broad prompts. Consenty therefore enforces access limits on the server rather than relying on an AI client to follow a polite instruction.

• 31-day query windowsEach MCP request is limited to a focused date range.
• 50-result responsesBroad searches must be narrowed before excessive data is returned.
• Credit checks firstConsenty checks the account balance before releasing chargeable records.
• Anti-harvesting controlsSequential enumeration, unusual cumulative coverage and attempts to bypass limits can pause access for review.

The MCP service is designed to answer legitimate, specific property questions—not “give me every consent in New Zealand.” Coverage is not exhaustive, and every material conclusion should be checked against the relevant council record.

Building consent data aggregator FAQs