Clarkson Bob: Building (Late Consent is a Free Consent) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Clarkson Bob: Building (Late Consent is a Free Consent) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:634;Page:5690] 
BOB CLARKSON (National—Tauranga) 
: 
 The Labour member Clayton Cosgrove was very robust in his speech. I actually saw sweat running down his face but I noticed that it was running off one side of his face—he is obviously not level-headed. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: That’s a funny one Bob. 
BOB CLARKSON 
: I thought it was pretty good. 
The Building (Late Consent is a Free Consent) Amendment Bill is an important amendment to the Building Act 2004. I thank Nick Smith for putting this amendment bill forward for consideration. This member’s bill was drawn out in the first ballot—the Lord works in mysterious ways. It is very necessary that bureaucrats be pulled into line with the law. We cannot allow councils to get away with dragging their feet—there must be some accountability. If consents are late— 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: Send it to the local councils! Say it again! 
BOB CLARKSON 
: The member should stop rattling. 
If consents are in breach of the time frame a penalty must be paid. I know of cases where consents were held up for many months. The delays cost builders thousands of dollars in lost time. I know of a case where the owner of a project about to be constructed has finally pulled the pin—he has given up waiting. In that case Tauranga has lost a good business. 
I get quite upset when builders wait weeks after the 20-day limit. There is no communication from the council in a lot of cases. The bureaucrat should have a checklist to see whether anything is missing—they use that as an excuse quite often—or whether anything has been done wrong and they should notify the person who lodged the permit within days of the lodging if something is missing. When councils are busy they write a letter to builders asking for further information. This stops the clock as far as the 20 days is concerned. The letter takes 3 days to get to builders so they have already lost 3 days before they can react. If the builder gives the council the information it requires the clock starts ticking again. Then the council sends another letter asking for more information and the delay process starts again. This is a ridiculous situation. As I have said before why does the council not have a checklist and notify builders of any problems once only? 
I know of cases where an engineering report was requested about the design of a 12-metre door. Then 1 week later the council asked whether the offices had air conditioning. Both of those requests could have been made at about the same time thus saving a total period of 2 weeks. The 12-metre door was being manufactured by a recognised door manufacturer and it needed only a producer statement not a design when the job was finished. There was no air conditioning in the offices and the plans showed that. Why did the council ask those questions? It was to slow down the process. In this case the council stretched 20 days out to 34 days. There has still been no permit issued on the project I am talking about. This is costing the developer $12000 a week in delays. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: How much? 
BOB CLARKSON 
: It is costing $12000. The developer paid $6 million for the land. Members opposite may not be able to work it out but it is $12000 a week down the drain. 
That type of situation must stop happening. There must be a penalty if it happens—that is no fee will be paid. I think the bill is not tough enough. I would like to see a penalty for every day that the consent is late or the builder should be allowed to start work if the consent is not issued. That might be too tough on the bureaucrats but we need to let them know that we mean business. 
There is another situation in Tauranga where the time limit of 20 days has been passed. The council decided 6 months ago to bring out new impact fees and all that sort of stuff. It has had 500 applications for permits in the last couple of weeks. That caused chaos in the council and it could not process the permits for the simple reason that it had not asked which application was urgent and which one did not matter—it was just trying to beat the impact fee deal. So that has caused major problems and the Tauranga City Council is way behind.