Councils and Consents

The issue with consents is quite simple:  there is zero risk-assessment in the process, the way Councils run them.  Schedule 1 IS risk-based:  it exempts small structures, unattached, garden sheds and low decks.  

But Councils are terrified of a risk-based system where low-risk=low fees, minimal inspection, and hence lower Power to Obstruct.  

And one can imagine their intake of breath once they realise that the world is gonna haveta go multi-proof consent (Councils don't get a look in except for foundations), for factory-built houses, to end-run the slung-up-by-drug-addled-hammer-hands-at-massive-expense approach currently en vogue.

Christchurch has demonstrated to the world that single-storey residential construction, whatever the method (and of course excluding URM chimneys and exogenous impacts like rockfalls) is perfectly safe in a risk sense:  it has not killed one single person.

Despite the many and varied 'qualifications' of the builders.

Despite the fact that many such houses (Norman Kirk's was the most famous) were buil;t by the owners.

Despite the fact that many of those houses did indeed become uninhabitable:  they took the hits BUT their inhabitants did not.   That's the definition of 'failing gracefully' which is the point of most design.

And despite about 60-70% of the housing stock being either unconsented at all (too old), consented during the post-war to 1980's period (when TLA's were responsive beasts staffed by common-sense folk).

The remainder, of course were consented (lately, expensively and interminably) by overstaffed empires full of cardy-wearing nit-pickers whose ideas of customer service came straight out of the Obstructiveness for Dummies playbook.

Gah.....

Additional note:  Schedule 1 Building Act 2004 has the following (and, I'm told, rarely used) clause (my italics):

2Territorial and regional authority discretionary exemptions(a)(b)

• Any building work in respect of which the territorial authority or regional authority considers that a building consent is not necessary for the purposes of this Act because the authority considers that—

  • the completed building work is likely to comply with the building code; or

  • if the completed building work does not comply with the building code, it is unlikely to endanger people or any building, whether on the same land or on other property.