National proposes ‘Building Consent Authority’ for large projects
Wednesday, 15 July 2026
The National Party will campaign on a shakeup for building consents, with qualified engineers able to sign off some building work themselves and a new national body looking after large buildings.
The party said this would remove unnecessary delays from the consenting system and free up councils to focus on smaller-scale builds.
Building consents refer to the legal process most construction projects go through to comply with the Building Code, which specifies safety and quality standards for buildings. This is different from resource consent, which covers how a project impinges on the environment, uses common resources, or impacts amenity.
National’s building and construction spokesman Chris Penk proposed on Wednesday morning that a new “Building Consent Authority” take over the assessment of large projects from councils.
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“This means complex projects will no longer need to depend on a local council happening to have specialist staff available. It will also free up councils to focus more on standard and residential consents to support more Kiwis to build or renovate their home,” Penk said.
“This will provide major projects with a single clear, nationally consistent pathway with the right specialist expertise.”
The party indicated in a document provided alongside its release that this would typically cover buildings or four storeys or more, with 500 or more occupants.
Penk also said the party would upgrade existing “producer statements” that engineers can provide as evidence for compliance with the Building Act. Currently councils have no standard process for how much weight to give these.
He said National would allow qualified engineers to sign off certain building work with these statements, forcing councils to accept these statements as proof of compliance with the Building Code.
“Producer statements are already widely used in the industry to indicate that work complies with the Building Code, but they currently have no formal status. That creates inconsistency and leads councils to duplicate checks over liability concerns.
“Under National’s policy, Building Consent Authorities must accept that producer statements from qualified experts mean that the work complies with the Building Code, where those statements meet prescribed requirements.”