Private building consent authority promises faster approvals for builders

Building Consent Approvals Limited will become the country’s first private company accredited to issue building consents – and promises to deliver consents within 10 days 

Building Consent Approvals Limited will become New Zealand’s first private company to issue building consents after it was granted accreditation by International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ), following rigorous assessments to ensure compliance with the Building (Accreditation of Building Consent Authorities) Regulations 2006.  

This move aims to alleviate the bottlenecks faced by builders due to delays in the traditional council-led consenting process. Historically, building consents have been the domain of territorial authorities, with only Kāinga Ora’s Consentium operating as a non-council Building Consent Authority (BCA) and only for public housing projects.  

The traditional consenting process has been criticised for its delays, with an Auditor-General report revealing that only three of 67 councils meets the statutory 20-day timeframe for processing consents. In Auckland, the average processing time extends to 55 working days – including the time a building consent is on hold while the BCA waits for the applicant to response to a request for information (RFI). 

A BRANZ external research report ModelDocs: Transforming building consent behaviour for better housing found that the reason for long actual timeframes was largely due to incomplete documentation and subsequent applicants’ slow response to RFIs – 86% of which were related to applicant behaviour. For example, in Auckland, each building consent application generated 2.5 RFIs, with 30 sub-line items requiring a response. 

Faster consents issued 

Building Consent Approvals Limited aims to process consents in 10 days. It is now able to process building consent applications, inspect buildings during construction, issue Code Compliance Certificates and Notices to Fix. 

Part of the rigorous assessment by MBIE was ensuring the company would be able to cover any civil liabilities that may arise in performing consenting functions. 

As per the Building Performance website, any application “must demonstrate adequate means for the full limitation period (10 years from the date of an act or omission by the BCA as specified by section 393 of the Act)”. 

Building Consent Approvals Limited’s Chair, Tony Sewell, told RNZ that the business had civil liability covered and was in a position to cover any issues if they arise. The company plans to commence operations in June, focusing initially on single-story residential projects for large developers. 

Talking to The Press, Sewell specified that the company is “not interested in complicated architectural builds”.  

“We can do the simple stuff, and that will free up the councils for the more complex applications,” he said. “It’s the low-hanging fruit, and there’s a lot of it.” 

However, the reintroduction of private consent providers has raised concerns among some industry stakeholders. John Gray, president of the Homeowners and Buyers Association, told RNZ that he was concerned the move could repeat past mistakes from the 1990s unless private consenting authorities carried significant insurance.  

“It did not work then and it will not work now, unless they get competent people,” he said. “And most importantly, those private certifiers [need to] have mandatory insurance to back them for their failures.” 

The government’s broader reforms to the building consent system include introducing a self-certification scheme for qualified building professionals undertaking low-risk residential work. This initiative seeks to reduce the burden on BCAs and empower trusted professionals to certify their own work, further streamlining the construction process. 

Over the next few weeks we’ll publish a series of articles on this topic, including the history of the concept, further details from MBIE, and feedback from councils and homeowners.