BCA merge in consideration

The Government is considering merging Building Consent Authorities (BCAs) to create larger regional BCAs for improved consistency and efficiency during the consent issuing process 

The Government wants to make New Zealand’s building consent system more efficient and consistent across the country. 

To do so, it will investigate a “more consistent and streamlined model” that reduces the number of Building Consent Authorities (BCAs) and creates a single point of contact for consent applications, said Building and Construction minister Chris Penk. 

“There are currently 67 BCAs across the country, each with different practices and approaches. We have a single Building Code that is supposed to apply consistently to all building work nationally. However, there are many instances of builders submitting the exact same plans to different BCAs and finding considerable additional costs and delays resulting from differing interpretations of the Building Code. 

“This is especially challenging for large-scale home builders and off-site manufacturers, along with modular and prefab builders, who work across regional boundaries. For example, in a recent survey of Master Builders Association members, 80% reported having to deal with multiple BCAs and 66% experienced delays.” 

To establish a more consistent national model, Penk said options under consideration include: 

• Voluntary consolidation – allowing councils to group together to deliver building control functions. Some are already pooling resources but face barriers to full integration. This approach will focus on removing those barriers.  

• Regional BCAs – establishing a smaller number of relatively large regional BCAs to replace the current 66 district and city council BCAs. This approach focuses on improving consistency and forming entities with the critical mass to drive economies of scale.  

• Single point of contact – setting up a single point of contact for builders to submit plans to. Building inspection may be contracted out to existing BCAs or private consenting providers, creating competition and encouraging specialisation. 

Additionally, the Government is looking at “liability settings” across the whole building system to encourage less risk-averse decision-making from BCAs. 

“Under the current settings, councils and their ratepayers are liable for defective work,” said Penk. “Joint and several liability means councils can be ‘the last person standing’ to foot the bill when things go wrong. This creates a highly conservative and risk-averse approach, which contributes cost and draws out deadlines.” 

The decision to look at liability goes hand in hand with the Government’s proposed crackdown on phoenixing (when directors of a failed company set up a new company with a similar name, staff and assets to the failed one). 

Responding to the news on NewstalkZB, New Zealand Certified Builders Chief Executive Malcolm Fleming provided cautious support. 

“There’s a lack of detail [in the announcement] but [we support] the idea of merging large metro and small regional BCAs. Merging would create greater local capacity and, at the moment, consent application levels are a little lower but will start to go up in the next couple of years, so the Government is right to be looking at this now,” he said.