A Christchurch-based private advisory has won accreditation to process building consent applications, inspections of buildings during construction, issue Certification of building work, and to issue Notices to Fix.
This accreditation is expected to quickly move to registration to do all these directly with applicants. This could mean the company could be issuing building consents as early as January 2025.
This will be the first time building consents are issued by other than a Territorial Authority, or Kainga Ora (Consentium).
The company is Building Consent Approvals Limited. It is led by Ian McCauley. Here is the accreditation.
Some industry observers say this could be a massive game-changer for the construction sector, disrupting the monopoly that Councils have on the market.
The company has been doing subcontracting work in this area for Councils for some time, so it comes with an operational track record.
McCauley has been intimately involved in building regulatory policy for many years.
13 Comments
According to Linkedin, Ian McCauley has worked closely with MBIE "to identify and represent risks and matters related to the NZ Building Code, including the robust discussion of any Agenda items that are brought to the table by other members."
Oodles of bureaucrat schmoozing and actual inspection experience. Setting up a private business and issuing invoices to local govt and / or developers / builders is the icing on the cake.
"Building inspections were privatised some 20+ years ago only to be scrapped because of quality problems..."
are you sure about that? Because around 30 years ago (1 July 1992) the Code Compliance regime was implemented & administered only by approved "Building Consent Authorities" - eg Councils. AFAIK only Housing Corp / Kianga Ora were able to inspect & issue CCCs outside that (using 3ps as mentioned in the above article)
"Private consent authorities have been permitted since the Building Act of 1991. Compass Building Consultants director Maurice Hinton said 18 companies entered the field in the 1990s. But all stopped issuing building consents after the act was rewritten in 2004 - in the wake of the leaky building crisis - to require all consent authorities to carry full civil liability insurance."
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/companies/construction/government-t…
Tauranga city had a couple of private certifiers, went back to the council when they couldn't get insurance and were about to be sued for leaky homes. Some of the building inspectors got taken to court individually, only people to win were the lawyers as they had to go bankrupt. The one good thing about them being private was the awesome service we got, hard to go back to council after that
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