Ashburton District Council processed a record value of building consents in the 2021-22 financial year, issuing consents for building work valued at $241.9 million.

Consents received for that period were valued at $255.8m; that compares with $212.6m last year.

Strategy and Compliance Group Manager Jane Donaldson said the 2014-15 financial year had set records with 1193 consents issued for work valued at $165.1 million, but the latest financial year had exceeded that.

“The increase is the equivalent of about 100 extra houses on the previous year, so a new record has been set.”
In the past year 983 consents were issued, including 276 for new homes.

Ms Donaldson said Council had sent some consents to be processed by independent contractors but most were dealt with in-house by a team of 15.

“We processed just over half the number of consents (56.1%) within the 20 working day timeframe, but the sheer workload and extra processing time needed when building materials have been substituted because of supply chain shortages meant we couldn’t always meet it.

“We might process a house with brick on the outside and as we are about to issue the consent, the brick is swapped out for another cladding, so we have to re-process it.”

Council has been working with local builders to accommodate any changes as quickly as possible.

Ms Donaldson said consent-holders had a year to start building once the consent was issued, though that timeframe could be extended.

“Some consent-holders have already negotiated extra time to begin work, based on uncertainties around finance, building materials and titles.”

Council is expecting the consent boom to continue at least until November, when new regulations around insulation come into force.

“To date, supply chain issues, inflation and increasing mortgage rates have not slowed consents coming in. Combine that with more compliance checking during the processing stage and there could be more delays.  Our team members are working as hard they can processing and inspecting building jobs.”

There have been two other milestones within the building services team in the past year: Mike Farrell was acknowledged for carrying out more than 5000 inspections during his 15 years as a building official, and building services manager Michael Wong was made an associate member of the Ashburton branch of the Master Builders.

Mr Wong has attended Master Builders meetings for the past 10 years to keep local builders abreast of changes to the Building Code, and to help them understand how the consenting process works.