Malcolm Fleming: NZ Certified Builders Chief Executive on changes to consenting process

Big changes to consenting processes could be on the way.

Currently, 67 building consent authorities receive and approve consents – with each one taking a slightly different approach to the rules.

Building and construction minister Chris Penk has proposed creating larger regional authorities to help standardise the process and reduce costs for builders.

New Zealand Certified Builders Chief Executive Malcom Fleming tells Ryan Bridge there is a lot of pressure on the system right now and moves towards quickening building consent processes are supported.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Big changes coming to our building consenting process could be
on the way. Currently, there are sixty seven building consent
authorities who receive and approved consents in New Zealand, sixty
seven of them, with each one taking a slightly different
approach to the rules. So building can construction. Mister Chris
Pink he's proposing changes to create larger regional authorities to

(00:21):
help standardize the process and make things quicker. Malcolm Fleming's
in New Zealand Certified Builders Chief Executive. He's with us
this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Malcolm, good morning, Good morning, Rayan.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
You're happy about these changes. Do you have any idea
how much quicker it could make the process?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Well? First of all, Ryan, we support his answer. Certified
Biller supports this general move towards quicker the processes for
building consent authorities to work through building consents. As you're
pointed out in your introduction, there are sixty seven different
building councils around YOURSELD and we often have a different
interpretation of a building consent. Example, a designer a builder

(01:03):
in christ Urge maybe submitting a building concent in that
jurisdiction and that building concent of flying through without any
problems the same building consent presented, say in a white
categist as an example, what have some issues? And that
creates inconsistency, It creates time and delays. Time is cost

(01:24):
for a project.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Speaking of time wait times, we're hearing up to two
months for a building consent, eighteen months for a resource
concent Does that sound about rain?

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Building consents have become down from where they were in
the peak. And remember Ian, it wasn't that long ago
that we were talking two years in fact, that we
have an artificial peak of fifty thousand building concent applications
in this country. The previous we've just got over forty
thousand two years before in twenty twenty one, and that

(01:56):
was the first time forty thousand have been exceeded since
the mid and eighteen seventies. So there's a lot of
pressure on the system right now. Building consents are tracking
through at a reasonable rate.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Okay, what about the private consenting providers? This is for inspections.
People are worried about this because of leaky homes and
if we reintroduce private consenting providers that you have more
problems on their hands. Would you are you okay with
that suggestion?

Speaker 2 (02:26):
I'm more rather prefer some of the options they've been
looking at in this paper. Other options, and again there
is a lack of detail, but options along the lines
of regional bcas sort of amalgamation of some of those
existing bcas I would imagine, as we've been talking about
agency be our own submission to the regulator around a

(02:48):
large metro drawing and being unified with a number of
the smaller councils. They've got really good capacity within the
system itself, reads emerging creating greater We're all capacity within
those organizations to help us go be able to carry

(03:14):
it through. At the moment we're a little lower and
building contents more likely worthy just about four years before COVID,
but they'll up at again the next couple of years.
The government's quite quite right to look at this.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Now, all right. So it sounds like you they're doing
the right thing and how they're doing a different story, Malcolm,
Thank you for that. Malcolm Fleming, the New Zealand Certified
Builders Chief Executive with us this morning. For more from
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