Council obtains building consent accreditation

 Taupo District Council is one of the first local authorities in the country to obtain accreditation as a Building Consent Authority.



Under the Building Act 2004 all local authorities are required to obtain accreditation by the middle of 2008 to enable them to continue issuing building consents and undertaking inspections relating to those consents.



The building consent accreditation was confirmed this month (December 07) by the Department of Building and Housing Group. Manager Environmental Services Gareth Green says of the 78 local authorities in the country Taupo District Council is among the first to gain accreditation.



Mr Green says a significant amount of pre-planning and work had been undertaken by the Building Control team over the past two years. This had enabled them to pull everything together quickly and efficiently when the final detail of the new regulations was released in February this year. The preparation and planning culminated in a week long on-site and paper audit by International Accreditation New Zealand in August 2007.



“Meeting the stringent requirements for accreditation well before the deadline reflects the outstanding effort made by the Building Control team and we are very proud of what they have achieved,” said Mr Green.



Chairman of the Planning and Regulatory Committee Don Ormsby says the achievement is particularly significant given the available resources and the continued demand for consents.



“As well as gaining accreditation, the Building Control team has also managed to significantly improve its compliance rate for meeting the 20 working day statutory deadline for issuing Building Consents.”



Mr Ormsby says a year ago the team was struggling to process 40% of applications within the statutory time-frames. New procedures had seen a dramatic improvement with 100% of Building Consent applications processed within the 20 day deadline for the last half of this year.



He says Council will be implementing further quality control measures in coming years as part of Stage Two of the Building Act accreditation process.