For immediate release
27 May 2020
Kawerau District Council advises people make contact
The Government has announced there will be new exemptions for some types of building consents which will come into effect by the end of August 2020.
An important note is that this relates to building consents, not resource consents.
“We are still awaiting guidance detail from MBIE so it is difficult to comment on all potential effects. People will still have the opportunity to apply for building consents if they wish,” said Kawerau District Council Manager, Planning, Compliance and Capability Chris Jensen.
The types of work are at the lowest scale of the Kawerau District Council fees and generally within one of the following groups:
In terms of any loss of income for Council, at worst Mr. Jensen estimates, “It could be in the vicinity of the $6,000 to $8,000 for the consents (which includes inspections) but it is difficult to comment with any certainty without the MBIE guidance.”
Again, with the same qualifications, time-savings for staff could be in the order of 60-80 hours (1.5-2 weeks) per annum.
There should be no significant impact on work streams for our building area.
There may be some increase in monitoring and complaint response costs, especially around planning rules (location, site coverage, height etc.), but this cannot be quantified in any way. Where monitoring (or complaint response) identifies breaches in construction standards, there will be a cost attached to work around getting rectification but again this cannot be quantified in any way.
The advice from the Kawerau District Council is that if residents are considering undertaking exempt building work – please phone the Council’s building team on 07 306 9009 to discuss this as some exempt work will be required to be done by a suitably qualified person (i.e., licensed plumber, drain-layer etc.)
[ENDS] Here is a link to the summary of changes www.building.govt.nz/projects-and-consents/planning-a-successful-build/scope-and-design/check-if-you-need-consents/building-consent-exemptions-for-low-risk-work/new-building-consent-exemptions/For more information, please contact:
Tania Humberstone
Kawerau District Council Communications Manager
M 027 464 3785