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NZ Certified Builders appoints new board members

NZCertified Builders Association (NZCB) has announced the appointment of Ian Chamberlain as its new board chairman.

Two new independent directors have also been appointed to the NZCB board.

Chamberlain, who has been a builder for more than 37 years, has stepped up to the role of chairman from being vicechairman over the past year.

The two new independent directors are former Ministry of Housing and Department of Building and Housing chief executive and now professional director Katrina Bach, and chartered accountant and financial advisory consultant Andree Atkinson.

Chief executive Grant Florence said the association was delighted to welcome the two new independent directors,who each brought specific expertise and an important external perspective.

“Andree’s financial expertise will be an asset around the board table, particularly in the context of our continued membership growth.

“Katrina brings a unique and valuable perspective as we navigate and best represent our members’ interests during a period of unprecedented regulatory change.”

Atkinson is the advisory director in Atkinson Consulting Ltd and a member of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand.

She has had significant experience on client advisory boards and not-for profit boards, and is chairwoman of the Youthtown Foundation and North Shore Events Centre Boards.

Bach was chief executive of the Department of Building and Housing for nearly a decade before its merger with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment in 2012 and chief executive of the Ministry of Housing.

A member of the Institute of Directors, Bach is a board member of CCSDisability Action and has held board and chairperson roles for several Crown entities.

The new appointments follow former NZCB chairman Kevin Sceats’ completion of his term as independent director. Sceats remains chair of the Halo Guarantees Ltd Board, which oversees NZCB’s Halo 10-Year Residential Guarantee.

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BOP Times, Tauranga 21 August 2021

Just how long does it take to build a home in NZ? by Diana Clement

Buying a new home has many benefits for homeowners and investors. They take time to build, however. Many factors affect the build time. A single-level standalone home on a greenfields site is a very different build proposition to a 200 apartment complex, for example. Construction time is easy to predict, says Grant Florence, chief executive of the New Zealand Certified Builders association. The build of a standalone home on a section should take about 20 to 24 weeks. John Tookey, professor of Construction Management at AUT, concurs. Homes built that fast are mostly likely to be in suburbs where developers have a stream of consents going through council and have construction teams in and around site already, says Tookey. A terrace development should take around nine months to complete while an apartment block could take a year or two. By way of example, Ockham Residential’s most recent development, the three-building, 95unit Kōkihi complex in Auckland’s Waterview, broke dirt in March 2020, four days before the first lockdown, and received its code of compliance certificate in June this year – that’s 15 months later but still four months ahead of schedule. Each development has its own quirks. Kōkihi had extra engineering challenges, thanks to its proximity to the Waterview Tunnel. It’s what happens before the first spade hits the ground that can make build times drag on, says Florence. That’s largely to do with developers needing to make sufficient pre-sales to get their finance, planning and council consents. Some of the factors include: • Pre-sales: Your build may not even start until the developer has pre-sold a certain number of units. Lenders require developers to make a certain number of pre-sales before providing finance. That can take months. • Design complexity: A simple design will be faster to build than a complex one, says Florence. Likewise, managing the build yourself can slow things down, he says. • Availability of builders: New Zealand’s skills shortage has been exacerbated by the pandemic. The country is short of around 40,000 tradies, which means many construction companies can’t build as fast as they’d like to, says Florence. • Supply chain issues: Builders often have difficulty buying materials. New Zealand is a long way from most of the rest of the world and is a small market. That, combined with the pandemic, has created long delays in the supply chain. • Council consent: Consenting issues often cause delays to building projects. The best- case scenario is that your consent is turned around in 20 working days, says Tookey. Make sure you dot all your Is and Ts before you lodge your initial application. Every time there is a request for more information from the council, the clock resets. If your plans change and you need to amend the consent after it has been granted, the council can add another 20 days to the process. Since 2011 the number of housing consents has grown year on year on average by 13 per cent a year, says Tookey. Councils have not increased staffing to match, which means they’re trying to eke more consents out of the same number of employees. • Height of the building: It takes longer to build a 10-storey apartment building than a two- or three-storey terrace, or a standalone home on a greenfields site. Apartment buildings need cranes and a huge amount of structural work. Most terrace homes are more than one-storey high and have adjoining walls with neighbouring houses. Typically, the entire block will be built at once, not just one terrace at a time. This extends the build time, says Florence. • Site preparation:Will your site need complex work on the land, drainage, foundations, and earthworks before the build can start? Steep, awkward sites take longer to build on. If you’re rebuilding on a site where a previous house stood, expect to run into problems such as the need for additional ground reinforcing or new retaining walls, says Tookey.

• Time of the year: The weather may affect your build. Ones taking place during winter usually take longer than the summer as bad weather can force tradies offsite or indoors. Even the holidays can slow the build down. Tradies take holidays too, especially over December and January. If you’re lucky, your developer and builder will be well down the track of sales, consents and even possibly construction by the time you sign the sale-andpurchase agreement. This will reduce the time until you can move in. The fastest and least complex way to buy a new home is to find a “turnkey” property that is already built that you can simply buy, turn the key in the lock and move into.

PMCA licensed copy. You may not further copy, reproduce, record, retransmit, sell, publish, distribute, share or store this in the prior written consent of the Print Media Copyright Agency. Phone +64-09-306 1657 or email info@pmca.co.nz for further infoPMCA licensed copy. You may not further copy, reproduce, record, retransmit, sell, publish, distribute, share or store this in the prior written consent of the Print Media Copyright Agency. Phone +64-09-306 1657 or email info@pmca.co.nz for further info Everyone has heard of a build that seemed to stretch on forever. New Zealand Herald, Auckland 18 October 2021