New building consent fees notified

A REVISED building consent fee schedule was posted to about 600 building industry representatives this week by the Manawatu District Council.

Builders, architects, plumbers, bricklayers and drainlayers are among those to receive the new schedule, which comes into effect on July 1.

Principal Building Officer, Chris Henry, said council needed to raise its fees in order to meet and maintain its level of compliance after being registered as a building consent authority earlier this year by the Department of Building and Authority.

“The Building Act 2004 places a more rigorous processing and inspection schedule on building services,” said Mr Henry, “and to maintain accreditation and standards is an on-going process.”

He said the MDC had held its fees and charges for as long as possible and with shared services now in place there was a requirement to charge the actual costs for building consents and inspections.

Mr Henry said he expected a small reaction to the schedule, mainly from those who were not involved in a lot of building activity.

“Many of the builders out there, however, are probably aware this was going to happen.”

The notification also outlines council’s request that electronic copies of all building plans and specifications be included with a building consent application.

Mr Henry said electronic copies should be submitted on a compact disc and files saved in either a jpg, pdf, gif or tiff format. Council’s charge for creating the electronic documentation was $40.

In the meantime, the 996 building consents so far issued by council for the 2007/08 financial year are valued at $73 million. With only one month in the year to run, the annual total is not likely to exceed the record-breaking $82.4 million from the 1243 consents issued in 2006/07.