Oh dear. What has the world come to? A to-do has erupted in Dunedin about the tree house grandad Trevor
built. It became national news when the Dunedin City Council required the tree
house to be removed because it did not meet the Building Code.
The "But it's a
bloody tree house!" response did not dissuade Council Officers from
exercising their serious responsibilities as an "independently accredited
building control authority".
They said the offending tree house was not exempt under
provisions for private playground equipment because the highest point of the
structure was more than three metres from the ground, and in any case it didn't
meet the "building code requirements
around structural integrity and safety from falls". In other words, the
Council said it needed a building consent.
There will be many hundreds if not thousands of tree houses
throughout the country. Few, if any, would comply with the Building Code. Despite
the universal non-compliance, there does not appear to have been a pandemic of problems- at least no more of a problem
than kids falling from trees that do not comply with the Building Code!
As it happens, in this case the tree house was actually
quite well built. The mother of the kids who played in the tree house works as
a Health and Safety officer. She is reported to have said, "It is bolted and nailed into the tree in numerous places. Yes
it's made out of pallets, but it's got Tanalized 4x2 underneath it, it's very
safe….At the end of the day if they were to hurt themselves it's me that has to
look after them, so I'm not going to expose them to an unsafe structure."
She added, "I think it's ridiculous... It's a
children's playhouse, seriously get a life".
She's right. It's just a tree house and probably a lot safer for kids than climbing a tree,
and it does not need to be built to last 50 years. As parents will know, things
like tree houses tend to have a life cycle about as long as a kid's attention
span. Typically they lose interest and anyone who has had kids will know that
they tend to grow older and their attention turns to other things that are
significantly more hazardous than a tree house.
Unfortunately this appears to be yet another example of too
much regulation and too little common sense. In this case a neighbour had
complained about their loss of "privacy", apparently because the elevation
of the platform provided a nice vantage point to view their property. In
reality, it appears that there may have been some history between the tree
house dwellers and their neighbours and the "privacy" complaint was
the latest instalment.
Had the council restricted its response to the privacy complaint
then the matter could have been resolved simply. However, once on site it
appears as though the officers looked beyond the scope of the complaint.
After becoming
national news, a local councillor rode like a White Knight to the rescue, mobilising
the local Rotary Club to rebuild it to Building
Code standard, using donated materials. No doubt the publicity has enhanced the
councillor's prospects of re-election next year, but it was the wrong solution.
He should have taken a lead from the mother's "I think it's ridiculous" comment
and gone into bat for the family. He should have asked the Dunedin City Council
to apply Clause 2 of Schedule 1 of the Building Act 2004. That clause gives
local authorities the power to exempt work from the requirements of the
Building Code where it considers the structure "is unlikely to endanger people or any building, whether on the
same land or on other property".
Had the council officers considered the risk of harm to the
kids was no greater than the risk of kids climbing a tree, then they could have
applied the Schedule 1 exemption. That would have been a common sense solution and
put an end to the matter before it became national news. Indeed, this exemption
could reasonably be applied to most of the DIY work that goes on without
attracting the attention of council's regulators because no-one makes a complaint.
If local council staff are so "risk-averse" that
they are not willing to apply the exemption clause to common sense situations
like tree houses, then the White Knight councillor could take his campaign to
the doors of Parliament and ask them to add the words "and tree houses "
to the list of works specifically granted an exemption in Schedule 1. It's not a major change so one would think
this could happen pretty quickly, and most importantly, the Minister involved
could get some brownie points in the process. That would make it very clear to
councils that DIY tree houses are OK and they won't have to worry about
covering their own backsides any more.
There is probably a very good reason why tree houses are not
included in the list of exemptions to the Building Code - no-one in their right
mind would think that it was needed. After all, it's just a bloody kids' tree
house!
Frank
Newman, an investment analyst and former councillor on the Whangarei
District Council, writes a weekly article for Property Plus.
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