Chris Penk: Building and Construction Minister on the new independent Building Consent Approvals authority

There's changes happening in the construction sector. 

Construction Minister Chris Penk is launching the country's first fully independent residential building consent authority - with approval subject to certain conditions being met.

The privately-owned company, supported by the government, promises to issue building consents within 10 working days for eligible residential projects. 

Penk told Mike Hosking it's another option alongside local councils. 

He says initially it will be too small to take on all the work council does, but it might be able to scale up depending on what the appetite is. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
More moving into the construction sector. This is interesting. We're
going to have our first independent residential building Consent authority.
It's private, yes, but it's backed by the government and
mb it'll iss you building consents within ten working days.
Chris Pink is the Building Construction Minister and he's with
us morning. What do you Mike, So when it says
eligible residential projects, what's that mean?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, I mean there's some technical categories, but basically it's
most of the residential work that would be done by
anyone who at the moment would go to their local council.
They'll be able to rock up and talk to these
guys instead and get the consent that they need.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
So this is one office as well as at scale projects.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, correct, that's right.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Does this use surper council completely?

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Well, it will in the case of people who go
to this new Building Consent Authority will Yes, it'll be
in place of but having said that, the councils themselves
will remain in place, So people who want to go
along to their local council will still be able to
do that if they choose.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Having gone to a local council relatively recently, why would
I go ever? Again to a local council. If what
you're suggesting is going to improve things, Yeah, well.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
I think these guys will offer another option and in
fact providing a bit of competition and the discipline of
that is actually going to be helpful for the system overall.
Initially they will be small enough, I suppose that they
won't be able to take on all the work of
the work the council does currently now all around New Zealand,
so they may be able to scale up. It'll be
interesting to see what the appetite is out there, given

(01:26):
that a number of people in some parts of New
Zealand will have had a negative experience and be keen
to give it a go.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Exactly what's this really all about? Is this just about
improving speed in other words, getting it done in ten
working days? Or is it about doing something uniform around
the country and not mucking around with individual rules and
regulations depending on what part of the country you live
in and what council you're under.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, it's a bit of both. Actually, it's an important
point that you make around the consistency. So for those
who are building at scale or even a few projects
but across different council boundaries. One of the common complaints
that I hear is that they have different interpretation of
the building code according to which council they're dealing with. So,
by definition, if you're dealing with only one building contend

(02:07):
authorities such as this new outfit, you know you'll have
that consistency regardless of where you are doing that work. It.
As for timing, yeah, I mean the speed of operation
is going to be really important. So it'll be fascinating
to see how these guys managed to work against that
statutory time frame of keen working days.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
How do you see this unfolding? Does this company scale
or do a whole bunch of companies broadly doing the
same thing then pop up? In other words, your usurping
councils and councils are no longer needed for this sort
of work. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well, we're in a stage of evolution, to be honest,
and if other private outfits want to put their hand up,
they'll need to meet the pretty high bar of having
what we call adequate means in other words, you know,
deep enough pockets to meet any liability that might arise,
and including by way of insurance and so on. But
we're already looking at a couple of other innovations. One
is to allow councils already existing at a district or

(03:01):
city level to consolidate their functions at a regional level.
And another one is looking at that question of liability
out of fairness to councils who have a lot of
liability as the last person standing. So we're looking to
potentially move away from that too, which will help.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
This seems like a game changer if it works.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, I'm really excited about its potential. To be honest,
I'll be watching closely how they perform, how they operate,
how the market responds. I think there'll be a lot
of people who would be keen to see if they
do represent a game changer for what it means for
them getting consents and inspections conducted quickly. So watch the space.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah, it's interesting, all right, Go well, Chris pank Here's
the Construction Minister.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
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Speaker 1 (03:43):
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