Frank Newman: Exempt building projects

It became national news when the Dunedin City Council required a tree house to be removed because it did not meet the Building Code.  

Essentially the problem was that council staff were covering their own butts by applying their regulatory powers rather than going out on a limb and making a common sense decision to apply the exemptions available in Schedule 1 of the Building Code.

Part 1 of Schedule 1 of the Building Act list those items that can be done without a building consent.  It's a long list with lots of ifs, buts, and maybes, but here's a rough summary.

Frank Newman: Work that does not require a building consent

I recently looked at the latest review of the Building Act 2004. Part of those reforms widened the range of building work that does not require a building consent, but before looking at the exemptions there are a couple of important points to clarify.

A building consent should not be confused with a resource consent. Just because a building may not need a building consent does not mean it may not need a resource consent, which regulates planning issues.

The second important point is that even exempt building work must be done to Building Code standard. So it's not a case of just banging something up - the job needs to be done properly. Not all building work needs to be done by a registered builder, but whoever does the work does need to do it to Code.