Ex-Master Builders’ chief David Kelly wants building consent system relaxed

The recommendations in the 28-page Building Consent System Report raised alarm with specialist leaky building litigator Tim Rainey.

He fears a repetition of the multibillion-dollar leaky building disaster if the report’s recommendations are adopted by the Government.

In moves for council inspectors to have less involvement in inspecting and approving work, Kelly recommends:

Kelly said the Building Act 2004 was a response to the leaky homes crisis but since then, “there have been improvements in sector capability. A circuit breaker is needed to recognise and reward sector capability and to exempt low-risk work from the current weight of consenting requirements”.

Twenty years on from the act being passed, a balance had yet to be achieved, he said.

“It has long been considered that the current system is suboptimal in terms of its consistency, responsiveness and inability to adequately differentiate between and respond proportionately to low-risk and high-risk building work,” Kelly said.

In the past two years, Hastings District Council had improved consenting functions, aiming to shift from a regulatory to a business focus, Kelly noted.

Rainey was one of the lawyers representing homeowners in the Court of Appeal case against James Hardie over Harditex.

On Thursday, that decision rejected the homeowners’ appeal and upheld the previous High Court decision, backing the building manufacturer.

Rainey questioned Kelly’s recommendation to shift more responsibility away from councils and on to licensed building practitioners

“We know from prior experience that if there’s a problem, they’re the first people to walk away,” Rainey said.

He recommends more regulation, not less, suggesting a Government-run building warranty system, not unlike ACC. Levies would be raised from the sector so that people had confidence that if there were problems with a new home, that could be rectified.

The Herald has reported on other changes the Government wants to bring into building regulations.

In June, the Government announced granny flats of 60sq m or less would be easier to build after planning changes that will force councils to permit small dwellings on rural and residential zones without resource consent. Making it easier to build granny flats was part of NZ First’s coalition agreement with National.

Labour building and construction spokesperson Arena Williams is in favour of improving the system “but we need the time and resource to get this right else we risk transferring huge costs to homeowners down the track. Auckland builders are telling me consents are fast to get at the moment because people aren’t applying for them. Consenting data shows they are down 27% in New Zealand’s largest city and 36 percent in Wellington”.

Educating the building sector to support changes using more remote inspections were are two good recommendations, Williams said.

“Smaller regional councils will need to be supported, not shut out of the process and told what to do by Wellington, as stepped consenting is introduced,” she said.

On September 20, the Government revealed its plans for a permanent replacement for the Resource Management Act.

In July, the Herald reported on the scope of Government changes in the sector.

Those include forcing most building inspections to be remote, reforms to release a “flood” of new houses to the market by strong-arming councils to liberalise planning regimes, fast-track consenting, granny flat incentives, Resource Management Act reform, banning rules discouraging tiny apartments, reversing pro-tenant laws, allowing landlord tax deductions again, cutting timeframes on taxing house sale profits, scrapping first-home buyer grants, promoting build to rent, reviewing Kāinga Ora and the $2.34 billion-plus accommodation supplement.

Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.