By Mark Graham*
The May Auckland Council Building Controls email newsletter celebrated 23,200 consent applications for the previous year, which is a pretty good number, until you remember that only around 8500 new consents were issued for residential dwellings – so that’s around 15,000 consents in need of an explanation.
We’ve always estimated the number of renovation consents to be roughly around the same number of new builds (Dept of Statistics doesn’t actually release the numbers in their monthly report) but that would still be way short of the 23,000 applications, so we asked the council to give us a break down.
As we suspected, there was more to the story than first expected.
Auckland Council kindly provided a breakdown of the numbers to June 2016. Of the 23,000 consents issued, 3214 were for commercial projects, 6844 were for new builds, and 9932 were for renovations.
So that’s a shortfall of 3,210 applications that haven’t been consented yet – 16% of the total.
What does this mean?
One in six applications – almost all of which are now from professional designers – architects, architectural designers and LBP-Design [Licensed Building Parctitioners] – are being held up in council because the application isn’t done properly.
That's a pretty appalling number, but it gets worse.
According to Auckland Council, they request further information in 70% of both commercial and residential consents.
That means almost three quarters of applications don’t have all the basic required information included, despite Council offering a comprehensive checklist to ensure just that it is.
Of course councils can be a bit pedantic, and they can also make mistakes and overlook material that is actually in the application, but 70%?
So here’s what’s going on, as supplied by Auckland Council:
“Breakdown of technical reason for consents go on hold with council:
- Incomplete documentation
- Producer statements missing, unclear what it covers; no peer review, no agreement to provide, etc
- Lack of detailed analysis or investigation of site conditions carried out.
- Building over drains – approval missing.
- Retaining walls not included (often overlooked).
- EAP (engineer approval) not yet ready.
- Designers trying work outside their competency.
- Designers not keeping up with changes to legislation or Building Code.
- Performance requirements of Code not understood.
- Lack of information to demonstrate compliance for Alternative Solutions.
- Scope and limitations of products not properly checked or understood.
- Issues with s.112 and s.115 of the Building Act (fire exit for renovations).
- Changes to design after lodgement.
- Failing to do a QA check before lodging / use the lodgement checklist.
- Failing to complete the Means of Compliance section on the application form
- Failing to provide information for specified systems”
According Gagan Saxena (B.arch) the Manager Consent Processing, Central/South Building Control at Auckland Council, “We always encourage our customers to have pre-application meetings with council which I have found very beneficial in complex projects.”
“If we find any issues with the documentation from the designers, our first approach is to work with them, have face to face meetings to explain the issues, discuss our policies and procedures and share our knowledge around compliance and legislative documents. We are working with NZIA [NZ Institute of Architects] and DINZ [Designers Institute of NZ] on some of these issues as well.”
I'm aware of a Wellington area council that has separate pre-construction meetings with the designer and builder, which will make it easier for either to highlight any problems in the designs without fear of the other party taking exception.
However, with forecasts now that we’re going to see a 40% increase in activity over the next two years, we’re figuring these numbers are not going to get better any time quickly.
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*Mark Graham is the publisher of BoB: The Business of Building, a trade magazine aimed at the building industry. This article will appear in the next issue of the magazine and is used here with permission.
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28 Comments
"One in six applications – almost all of which are now from professional designers – architects, architectural designers and LBP-Design [Licensed Building Parctitioners] – are being held up in council because the application isn’t done properly."
It's quite concerning that Council doesn't want to help and instead chooses to hold up the consent. This is not the service orientated that you would expect when dealing with Council. It also highlights why MBIE is investigating ways to improve Council processing. There is a definite problem that is getting much worse.
This is a crazy article. The writer of this article can't expect us to believe that Architects with years of experience in the industry is the cause of applications failing. Anyone who has attempted to apply for any consent will realise how much a mare of a process it is. Some councils requirements are worse than others.
There is no standard for consent processes. For example, Kaipara council have an online consenting process and is a joy compared to Auckland ('though North shore a trialling...).
It is known in the industry (see other comments) that when a council gets busy, applications will be held up for any reason so they can reset the clock. For example, a consent application for Auckland held up because the warranty for a wood fire was not in the information provided. Fortunately the Architect did a quick google search, find a pdf with the warranty information, and graciously the council accepted the pdf via email, but yes, the consent application process was reset to another 20 days.
I'm not complaining, it is what is it, but don't blame the people applying for applications for consent when the whole process is fraught. By the way, the amount of information that needs to be provided, it would take me more than 20 days to process, so until there is a more streamlined process, it's not going to change in a hurry.
fyi, I'm not an Architect, but I have been known to attempt to draw some pretty pictures of my projects.
I'm the writer of the article. Thanks for your feedback.
Hard as it may be to accept, there are many professional designers not filling forms out properly. Auckland Council has a checklist to ensure all the required elements are there. Not including a warranty for a wood fire is a basic mistake that a professional should not make. If he had included it in the first place, the consent wouldn't have been held up. Whose fault is that if not his?
Yes, different councils have different requirements, but each will work with applicants to make sure the requirements - mostly set by Central Government, by the way - are included. Cutting and pasting irrelevant material, or not including information that is explicitly required are basic mistakes that shouldn't be made. Hard to see how you can blame me for pointing this out, or the council for bouncing a poorly filled out application.
Hi Joe, I'll reply to you via notaneconomist, because he is able to better articulate the sentiments of my initial comment.
I'm not having a go at you for pointing out what we already know, and that is, the application for consent is fraught. I gave the example of the warranty because, yes, it should have been in the application, but it highlights the issues with the application process. The fact is, even though the common model of fire has been consented 1000's of times before, this individual application still needed to provide the same information, and the council staff member knew this. My question is, could there be a better way?
To blanket blame Architects for failures for applications for consents is not a way forward. The above mentioned application for consent wasn't a particularly complex house on a complex site, and yet the application for consent was about 900 A4 pages, plus 10's of A3's and A2's - just your usual application for building consent for a residential property, but still shows basic pieces of information can still be missed.
What I take away from your article is what I already know: just because you pay the council for a service, don't think the council staff work for you.
And yes, I still stand by my statement that it is a crazy article, and your response to my comment highlights what is wrong with the whole process. (Oh, and now you're blaming the central Government too...) This is why the councils 'customers' and ratepayers are so frustrated with the [Auckland] council.
You give a poor example of a wood fire for a design. So lets say the designer has submitted a design for a new house, completed a large number of details, pulled together and it turns out that will the huge pile of paperwork they've completed they missed the warranty information for the fireplace. Minor mistakes happen. Now it's how Council responds at this point that is important.
Does Council (who is charging professional hourly rates for their work) act like a professional and make a quick phone call so the designer can email through a scan of the warranty information? Or do they respond with a request for information on the very last working day, send it by post, and inform the applicant that the processing time is both suspended and they are restarting the clock?
What you find is that the majority of the time the later occurs just to hold up the consent as long as possible. The later is lazy, incompetent, unprofessional and in deliberate defiance of the building act. Yet it occurs all the time.
Moving away from your example; poor performance by Councils is often in the form of lengthy requests for information that are more about making designers jump through hoops than the building officer actually processing the consent. This is not just disappointing but it deliberately sabotages projects with delays and adds a lot of costs with no consideration of the economic damage done.
You should note that I thought you were discussing responses from Councils with your reference to cutting and pasting irrelevant information.
My summary of your article is that it is propaganda intended to bring the designers into disrepute. In fact this is conduct that is not professional or ethical and should really bring into question the Council's accreditation as a building consent authority.
The documentation required by the council is huge and always changing and getting bigger. If there is any element the council doesn't understand or think is missing, they hold up the consent and send a letter to the applicant. In my 20 years working as an Architect I have never had an application approved first go (I can see some jokes coming my way)
Given the all the documentation is provided it's a sign of failure on the part of the Council if they ask for more information when it's already provided. They are blaming designers when Council is oblivious to the fact that they aren't doing their job properly.
They seem to mistakenly believe that the application form is a test. The real test is the performance of the design not the form filling in process. In recent years Council's have been filling technical roles with administrative staff that are only there to create roadblocks instead of help.
Compared with 2000 and before the process is slower but the Councils are still making serious mistakes. They are just different mistakes compared to the past.
Brilliant. Let's go back to pre-2000 and have another round of Leaky Homes shall we? As it is, we have changes to legislation, a building boom and a flood of inexperienced workers coming into the industry. History repeats and people who think it was better in the past are living in fantasyland.
For goodness sake that is really laying it on thick now!
It makes me wonder if some insiders planned to have a massive failure so they could obtain more power and control......the systems inside Councils are draconian!!
You're pointing the finger in one direction as that is where you want the attention of people to be......... what are you hiding from?
I read this as Auckland Council mostly doing a good job given how constraining the Building Act 2004 is.
I hope that the pre-meeting referred to in the article is free (or at least one meeting is) and would call that a definite customer-friendly service.
Although it doesn't say it I also hope that the council does a basic screen of an application before it formally receives it and charges any money. Just to see that all the fields are filled in etc.
Most people don't understand what a sea-change the 2004 amendments to the Act were. Made at the time the government was speedily shovelling all the blame for its own cock-ups with respect to leaky buildings onto councils the Act sought to professionalise the industry at the same time it deprofessionalised the building inspection role. Under the new Act buildings must be built as per the approved plan. Previously inspectors could approve changes as construction proceeded as long as the variations still complied with the Building Code. Now the plan has to be perfect first go and all statutory requirements met before the consent is issued.
Hence all the reasons given above for "seeking further information".
Correct the Act has loaded more red tape, subsequent changes to the fire sections of the Acceptable Solutions has generated a complete failure. The worst changes were introduced by National. The hilarious part is all the unnecessary busy work that Council's load onto designers is wasted because the building inspectors are not carrying out the work that is required. There are some fantastic designs but there are buildings that are incomplete and do not match the design that get signed off.
The entire process is to designed to fail and Councils are exposing themselves to liability and they don't realise.
I wonder how many applications get held up multiple times because they find new reasons after each new submission. I think this happens because the consent application passes through multiple hands, but once it is held up it stops with that council employee. Once the reason for it being held up it gets passed on internally to someone else that holds it up for a different reason. Happened to me years back, and the administration requirements are much more onerous now.
Having done a big reno, I have had my consent held up in these separate instances
*Additional information that the council building desk said was not needed (my architect called to check), but then the officer reviewing the consent decided he needed it.
*An engineer's hand writing that the officer didn't like, even though it is readable.
My architect has been in the industry for 30+ years, and he said the consent pre-meeting is not worth the time, because whatever was agreed to is non-binding, and the person assessing your consent take no notice of what went in the pre consent meeting.
Just more public servant inertia, micro management and misdirection. The brief is simple, always make the problem belong to some body else over designing a suitable system. Always their reports are sufficiently vague as to obscure the real downfall of archaically inefficient systems and processes, internal incompetence and simple indifference. Never will their fellow public servants find them at fault. Hospitals, MSD offices, council offices along with many others need security guards to protect their staff from disgruntled service users primarily because their service is unsatisfactory. In my experience, satisfied customers do not shoot you. NZ used to be better than this. But hey, what are you gonna do?
I agree NZ used to be better than this!!
Once there was a can do attitude and people weren't afraid to put their hands up and take responsibility now they cower behind doors shifting the blame.
We are witnessing the indoctrination of the masses......as more generations become exposed slowly the system is entrenched upon the populace.....one day NZ will become a communist country as the public servants agenda of control reaches plague proportions!!
Strengthens my case for single-storey, light-roof, residential construction to be slung straight under the 'exemption from consent requirements' sections of the BA 2004.
Because going through all the hoops - like, who decides that "Designers trying work outside their competency" and what are the appeal provisions - is just an economic dead-weight.
We don't subject cars, caravans, boats or planes to this sort of Byzantine process. Or even walk-in freezer rooms. In every case, it's unload 'er off of the truck, plug 'er in or put gas in the tank, hey presto, she runneth.
Best plan: more use of national multiple-use approvals (Secs 30A-H BA 2004) to end-run the craziness of Council BCA's. The uptake is minimal.
Oh, and SIP, panelised and similar construction designs, made in factories, with proper QC. My familiar refrain.
Because, with the current system, even when ya gets through the bureaucratic mire, pockets many thousands lighter for close to zero practical design benefit, the sad reality is this:
yer Dream Home is going to be clonked together by occasionally drug-tested hammer hands, with sparse/rotational attendance by everyone from aforesaid hammer-wielder to tradies, left out in the weather for weeks at a time, will take 6-12 months total elapsed time, and if you are really lucky, will have only over-run budget by 10-15%.
Generic process for councils wishing to serve burgers:
After waiting in queue, Customer presents at counter to place order.
No menu is displayed, If customer requires to view a menu, counter staff advise that menu is available to be viewed online only and asks for relevant documents for the order, also available to be downloaded online.
They do however have a copy for you, you may take it and fill it in and rejoin the queue.
On completion and return to counter, staff peruse the document and, while it is not specifically requested, note that you have not specified how you would like your burger patty cooked. They refer you to the guideline section of the document and suggest you adjust your form and rejoin the queue to resubmit it when done. The guide will inform you that regardless of the selection you made regarding the condition of your patty, the council and its agents cannot be held responsible if your request cannot be met due to circumstances outside their control.
On completion and return to counter, staff peruse the document and if satisfied that the form is correctly completed the staff will ask if you would like fries with that.
When you reply "yes", they will present you with a supplementary form which must also be completed for this addition to your order. Note that the original order cannot be processed until this supplementary has been received. Time to delivery cannot be advised.
Having just had a few visits to the local council building inspector I feel it is too hard for a local bodies group to handle, it was alright when all they worried about was the drains and perhaps it is time to revert to that, leaving all other issues to a national organisation specialising in whatever is legislatively necessary.
They mean well though
MBIE is looking at changes to the way things are handled. Really Auckland Council should wait for that process to complete rather than trying to cover their arse by trying to blame designers for the Council's own failings.
If the changes help and improve things, great. If the changes are ineffective then it'll be time to turn the problems into a political football during an election year.
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