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Technical Review - Thames Coromandel District Council: Roles of the Department of Building and Housing and the Council

The Department's role

The Department is responsible for conducting technical reviews of territorial authorities and building consent authorities. This is part of its wider statutory responsibilities for building and housing, and administration of New Zealand's building legislation. In summary, the Department's key building control functions include:

  • advising the Minister for Building and Construction on matters relating to building control
  • administering and reviewing the Building Code
  • producing Compliance Documents that specify prescriptive methods for complying with the Building Code
  • providing information, guidance and advice on building control to all sectors of the building industry and consumers
  • implementing, administering and monitoring a system of regulatory controls for a vibrant, innovative sector with skilled building professionals
  • making determinations, or technical rulings, on matters of interpretation, doubt or dispute relating to compliance with the Building Code or issuing building consents and code compliance certificates.

Role of the Consent Authority Capability and Performance Group

The Department's Consent Authority Capability and Performance Group is responsible for undertaking technical reviews. The Group's broad functions include:

  • monitoring, reviewing and improving performance outcomes of the regulatory building control system
  • managing and strengthening relationships with building consent authorities, territorial authorities, regional authorities and other key industry stakeholders
  • providing advice and guidance to the regulatory building control industry.

Role of territorial authorities

Territorial authorities have a range of statutory functions and powers under the Building Act 2004. These include:

  • determining whether applications for waivers or modifications of the Building Code, or any document for use in establishing compliance with the Building Code, should be accepted
  • determining the extent to which buildings must comply with the Building Code when altered, their use is changed or their specified intended life changes
  • determining whether building work is exempt under Schedule 1 from the need to obtain a building consent
  • enforcing the Building Act and Building Regulations (including the Building Code)
  • performing functions relating to dangerous, insanitary and earthquake-prone buildings
  • issuing certificates of acceptance
  • issuing certificates for public use
  • issuing and amending compliance schedules and enforcing the building warrant of fitness regime
  • issuing project information memoranda
  • following up on notices to fix, gaining access to buildings, collecting fees and issuing fines and infringements.

Territorial authorities must also act as a building consent authority for their district. Statutory functions of a building consent authority include:

  • receiving, considering, and making decisions on applications for building consents within set time limits
  • inspecting building work for which it has granted a building consent
  • issuing building consents, code compliance certificates, compliance schedules and notices to fix.

Thames Coromandel District Council

The Council's jurisdiction covers the Coromandel Peninsula and is largely surrounded by sea, with views across the Firth of Thames and Hauraki Gulf to the greater Auckland Region on the west coast and the Pacific Ocean on the east coast. The Council is one of 11 district councils and one city council in the Waikato Region and it shares its southern boundary with Hauraki District Council.

From the last census, the usual resident population of the district was 24,819 people. The district also experiences large influxes of holiday-makers and tourists over the summer months, with the population peaking at approximately 200,000 around the Christmas and New Year periods. The resident population and seasonal influx of people are significant in relation to the public safety aspects of the Council's territorial authority functions under the Building Act.