The Government has announced it is considering major consent reform, such as a move to make it easier for building practitioners to complete ‘low-risk’ work without requiring an inspection, although it is unclear whether new rules would apply to landscapers
The new scheme would reduce or remove the third-party review role of Building Consent Authorities (BCAs) for professionals carrying out low-risk work, said Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk.
“Qualified building professionals […] will be able to self-certify their own work for low-risk builds without the need for an inspection,” said Penk.
“Businesses with a proven track-record […] will be able to go through a more streamlined consent process.”
The proposal has beefed up safeguards, including a clear pathway to remedy poor work and strict disciplinary actions for incompetent or careless self certifiers. The scheme will look to achieve its goals by:
• Enabling a broad range of groups to be eligible to apply for participation in self-certification.
• Requiring that participants in the scheme demonstrate an appropriate, specified level of competency and experience and be trustworthy.
• Limiting the type of work that can be self certified to lower risk activities, for example work on a simple residential dwelling.
Undecided role for landscapers
In a statement to NZ Landscaper, MBIE Consenting and Practitioners Policy Manager Suzannah Toulmin said that there’s no guarantee that landscapers would be included in the list of professions able to self-certify – although she didn’t rule it out.
“The Government is exploring options for a new opt-in self-certification scheme for trusted building professionals and accredited businesses carrying out low-risk building work. MBIE is currently progressing work to inform the design of the scheme, including what work will be deemed ‘low risk’ and who is able to be self-certified, who can opt-in to the scheme, and the conditions that anyone wanting to opt-in to the scheme will need to satisfy.
“In its development, the scheme will go through a robust consultation process with opportunities for stakeholders throughout the sector and wider public to be engaged and provide feedback.”
More oversight required
Wellington-based Sole Landscapes and Registered Master Landscapers board member Jono Sole believes that self-certification may not be right for landscaping, which generally has less legal oversight.
“I’m not in favour of a self-certification regime – at least under the current proposal,” said Sole.
“As things stand, anyone can call themselves a landscaper and carry out quite expensive,
complicated work.”
“Whoever does that job needs to be held accountable but there currently isn’t any licensing
scheme for landscapers other than becoming a Licensed Building Practitioner (LBP), which isn’t
designed for landscaping. If there was an LBP scheme to hold qualified landscapers to account, that might change things.”
A possible BCA merger
Penk also announced that the Government is considering creating a “more consistent and
streamlined model”, which reduces the number of BCAs in New Zealand and creates a single point of contact for consent applications.
“There are currently 67 BCAs across the country, each with different practices and approaches,” he said.
“We have a single Building Code that is supposed to apply consistently to all building work nationally. However, there are many instances of builders submitting the exact same plans to different BCAs and finding considerable additional costs and delays resulting from differing interpretations of the Building Code.”
A BCA merger is something Sole said he would be in favour of. “South Wairarapa District Council uses outside consultants to process building consents, which can be a punishing process, as the decision-making rationale frequently changes; work that is fine for some inspections doesn’t pass others. Merging with Wellington to create a Greater Wellington BCA could mean all decision-making follows the same process and rationale,” he said.
Insurance implications
Part of the proposal to create fewer BCAs is a review of liability settings across the building system to “encourage less risk-averse decision-making from BCAs”.
“Under the current settings, councils and their ratepayers are liable for defective work,” said Penk. “Joint and several liability means councils can be ‘the last person standing’ available to foot the bill when things go wrong. This creates a highly conservative and risk-averse approach, which contributes to costs and draws out deadlines.
“A model where building practitioners shoulder more of the risk should incentivise better quality work and lower the liability risk for ratepayers.”
Data provided to NZ Landscaper by Auckland Council shows that the failure rate from November 2023 to November 2024 for inspections, which relate to stand-alone retaining walls or swimming pools, was relatively low. From 3,293 inspections, 444 pools failed (13.4% failure rate). For retaining walls, 531 failed from 8,449 inspections (6% failure rate).
In comparison, the failure rate for residential building work is much higher. In a LinkedIn post, Auckland Council Building Inspection Manager Jeff Fahrensohn revealed that out of 23,397 final residential building inspections in the last year, 8,721 failed (37%). Additionally, 30% of 4,348 pre-cladding inspections carried out in the past 12 months failed.