Bruce Kohn: Consistency, speed key to consents

The building industry hopes greater transparency and faster processing will mean fewer delays. Photo / Dean Purcell

Auckland's building industry has been upset for many years by inconsistencies in approach and time delays in the processing of consent applications by different councils in the region.

The region's building industry sees the controls area as a litmus test of the success of the Super City.

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A more customer-focused approach is promised. With this should come a much better understanding of requirements between the Auckland Council processing team and the designers, builders and material suppliers who have to deal with it.

Industry cannot put a dollar figure on the costs of delays provoked by different rulings on the acceptability of products and varying demands for information. The hope is today's problems will quickly become history.

Doug McKay, interim chief executive of the Auckland Council, has said the building control and resource consent areas are ones in which the whole ethos of greater connection and responsiveness will be delivered.

His new manager, resource consents, Heather Harris, says that in addition to lower fees and charges for core regulatory services a number of new initiatives have been designed to ensure processes are streamlined and simplified.

An industry view is that the new special projects unit, with a key account team to assist major businesses through the consent process for major projects, will be of benefit.

But a number of businesses see the introduction of a policy, training and resolution unit to drive consistency in decision-making as of equal significance. Integration of territorial and regional council consenting, which will eliminate the two-tier process, should ensure faster processing.

The new system will not have much time to bed down. Building and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson hopes to have his leaky homes repair initiative up and running by the end of March.

This is going to place huge pressures on the new council, which is likely to have to sign off repair projects as acceptable and become involved in inspections to ensure a compliance certificate can justifiably be provided.

Damage assessors, designers and builders will look for rapid decision-making. It will be in the interests of council consenting staff that a good understanding exists between them and building industry players by the time weathertight homes remediation is in full swing next year.

Materials suppliers hope this understanding will extend to a policy approach by the new council that makes any established, pre-determined, approved building product list publicly available.

Under the present system some councils approve specific products while others do not. This will change from November.

When the system is amalgamated suppliers and specifiers will want to know if the council has a predetermined list of approved products.

Suppliers whose product is not on the list will also want to know what the process is to achieve acceptability.

Transparency and a co-operative stance will help in holding down building costs in the region.

Bruce Kohn is chief executive of the New Zealand Building Industry Federation.