Editorial: Government plans to streamline building consents, slash red tape should be cautiously welcomed

EDITORIAL

The Government’s bold plans to streamline a ponderous building consents process should be welcomed, albeit with caveats.

Under designs billed as “major reform” unveiled by the Minister for Building and Construction, Chris Penk, last week, builders will be able to self-certify low-risk work.

It would mean qualified trade professionals, like builders, drainlayers and plumbers, would be able to sign off on their own residential work, rather than waiting for council inspectors.

Given that New Zealand is mired in a housing crisis, and with houses taking a frustrating and dawdling 569 days – on average – to be consented and built, it appears like a refreshing move. Penk noted that the current build time was “simply too long to wait”.

“At the moment, a single-story basic home might go through 10 or more separate inspections,” he said.

“This is clearly too many and the cost-benefit has become unbalanced.”

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon added that red tape was “regulation that doesn’t have a benefit” and vowed to speed the system up, while ensuring there was no space for cowboy operators, with sound consumer protection.

Red tape soared in the wake of our leaky homes crisis, which saw timber-framed homes built from 1988 to 2004 that were not fully weather-tight, resulting in Kiwis living in dangerously unhealthy, damp and mouldy homes.

While there is an urgent need to build more houses in New Zealand – affordably and quickly – it must not be done at the expense of quality and health.

As the president of the Home Owners and Buyer’s Association, John Gray, told RNZ last week, there were parts of the new scheme that gave him “grave cause for concern”.

“It needs to be very robust and we need to see the detail,” Gray said, adding that there must be “appropriately weighted civil or criminal sanctions” for anyone who failed to meet standards.

The Government assures us it will come down hard on any cowboy operators, but something needs to be done to speed up the process and put the trust in the professionals to do a good job.

“It’s not about lowering standards,” Penk said.

“It’s about placing the requirements of the system and resources to where they’re most needed, rather than having regulation for regulation’s sake.”

Let’s hope so. Because although we are in desperate need of more housing, we don’t need a repeat of the disastrous leaky homes scandal unfolding over the coming years.