IN THE KNOW —
What impact will the recent building consent exemptions have on you? You may recall that late in May 2020 the Government announced some sweeping changes to the building consent regime that were intended to increase the volume of low-risk building work and lessen Councils’ workloads. This was promoted as one of the ways to kick-start the economy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The idea was that if you remove the expense and delay associated with applying for a building consent for low-risk projects, then a lot more people will undertake that work, tradesmen will be busier than they would have been, and more money will start flowing through the economy. Savings of up to $18 million in consenting costs, and a reduction in Council workloads of up to 9,000 consents per year were projected. You could be forgiven for thinking this was some kind of hallelujah moment, as though building activity was being freed up for the first time in history. In fact that’s not the case, and it is simply the latest relaxation of the building consent rules in a series of reforms that have been happening over the past 20 years, the previous ones having occurred in 2004, 2008, 2010, 2013 and 2019. With the steady improvements in building product quality, the proliferation of prefabrication and modular construction, and the increases in the qualifications and expertise required of builders, it is inevitable that the building consent restrictions can be gradually eased over time.
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These exemptions were due to come into force in two stages – some of them at the end of August 2020, and the rest (those that rely on the involvement of licensed building practitioners) later in the year when other changes are made to the Building Act. True to their word, the changes outlined in the Building (Exempt Building Work) Order 2020 did come into force on 31 August. However, as it turns out, most of them do rely on the involvement of licensed building practitioners or chartered professional engineers. Presumably the changes that are due to come into force later are those that relate to the manufacture of modular homes. Most of the exemption categories aren’t new, but are simply old exemptions that have been expanded. For example, you could always build small-scale single-storey detached buildings, carports, awnings, porches and verandas, and bridges without a consent, it’s just that you can now build bigger ones. However, most of those larger structures will only avoid the consent regime if they are kitset or prefabricated, and a chartered professional engineer has carried out or reviewed the design (at considerable cost),
