The National Party is proposing to allow qualified engineers to sign off certain building work without needing council inspection and it also wants to designate a specialist Building Consent Authority to use a single pathway for consents.
Making the policy announcement on Wednesday, National’s Building and Construction spokesperson Chris Penk says "for too long, building has been slower and more expensive than it needs to be".
If National is re-elected into government, Penk says they would kick off these changes with commercial buildings, which make up around $9 billion of consented work each year.
“Large commercial buildings are complex projects. They often involve specialist engineering systems that are designed and peer reviewed by experts."
“But even when that expert work has already been done, these projects still have to go through a consent process that is often better suited to a standard house than a large retail or commercial development," Penk says.
"That can mean extra checks, extra paperwork, extra cost and extra uncertainty, without making buildings any safer or better quality.”
Penk says this will be fixed by the two changes National has proposed.
“First, we will allow qualified engineers to sign off building work without the need for a council inspection by formalising the role of producer statements in the Building Act."
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) describes a producer statement as "a professional opinion based on sound judgment and specialist expertise. It is not a product warranty or guarantee of compliance".
"The producer statement system is intended to provide Building Consent Authorities with reasonable grounds for the issue of a Building Consent or a Code Compliance Certificate, without having to duplicate design or construction checking undertaken by others," MBIE says.
Penk says producer statements are widely used in the industry but have no formal status under the Building Act 2004, which “creates inconsistency and leads councils to duplicate checks over liability concerns".
Under National's proposed policy, the status of producer statements would change. Building Consent Authorities would have to accept that producer statements from qualified experts "mean the work complies with the building code, where those statements meet prescribed requirements”, he says.
By designating a specialist Building Consent Authority to consent for large commercial buildings, Penk says this would provide major projects “with a single clear, nationally consistent pathway with the right specialist expertise”.
He says this means complex projects will no longer need to depend on local councils having specialist staff available and it frees up councils to focus more on standard and residential consents.
“Streamlining commercial building consents will help get major projects moving faster, reduce unnecessary costs, support more jobs, and create more opportunities for New Zealanders."
5 Comments
Growth is epresseed in terms of doubling-time.
These muppets are attempting another doubling, therefore. Which is impossible. Commandeer all the DoC land, eliminate all govermnent, remove all rules - and you still can't double from here.
So now pick how long to collapse: @ 3%, a doubling is 24 years... so the pursuit of economic growth has substantively less than that, to go.
Where is the journalism? Where are the critiques?
Note: I have no problem with producer statements - but that's not the point.
The Council is only concerned that a qualified competent registered structual/civil engineer do the sign off and produce a PS1. Council consent officials do not have the expertise to peer review a complex commercial building design. There is essentially nothing wrong with this as the joint and several liability is still in place. A lot more tricky if the Council call for a PS2. Most likely to occur if they don't trust or know of the structual/civil engineer. Perhaps some overseas consultancy not familiar with NZ building standards. Also a deliberate stalling tacit by Council bureaucrats, for whatever reason. On the face of it a reasonable move. Could never see Labour , Greens etc coming up with this sort change. Not much different from the change on shed size and location although resource consent is still required if the shed is within 3m of a road boundary, at least in NP it is.
I'd get rid of the koha required by Maori as well to build a commercial building. National/LabourGreens/TOP too afraid to do this. Not sure if this is in Winston's sight.
What is a PS2?
my initial gut response to this was recalling the debacles of contracted out inspection services; and the BRANZ non treated kiln dried pine framing approval.
The second is liability - the CCTV(?) building collapse in Christchurch - supposedly the work of respected, credible engineers. If building work is a 50 year plus life expectancy, how is liability covered 30 years out in the future should some unforeseen failure occur?
PS2 — Design Review. A peer review of someone else's design, commonly used for more complex or higher-risk specialist design. Independent engineer or reviewer with suitable competence.
CCTV collapse. A local, I think NZ professional Engineer, messed up on this and the professional body could'nt suspend him or remove his name from some form of list for Engineers capability in related design work. The Engineering body and at least one of them was invloved had to amend their membership or suspension/dismissal criteria. Too far back for me to recall the exact details.
It can very well be a problem if trying to pin blame for design on someone 15 years plus after the event. I also don't know when PS1/2/3..? were introduced. Maybe post ChCh earthquake?
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