Plans to licence builder well-received: Minister

Cosgrove says more than 300 submissions were received and they are now being analysed.

Work is under way into establishing the criteria for 13 license classes, he told the Fire Protection Association conference last week.
A second discussion document will be released in the first half of next year and it will contain much more detail on the new code’s proposed performance criteria.

The Building Code review is scheduled for completion in November 2007, with the new Code projected to take effect in 2008.
Cosgrove says another change coming up is to the auditing and accrediting of Building Consent Authorities (BCAs).

Under the Building Act 2004, only registered BCAs will be allowed to do building consent processing work, building inspections and consent approval functions from November 30 next year.

Cosgrove says there is still “a raft of fundamental reforms” coming through for the building and construction industry, as the sector “is not yet where it needs to be”.

He says the reforms, being rolled out from the Building Act 2004, came about because “there was a lot wrong with New Zealand’s building and construction sector in many areas, including some substandard techniques and workmanship”.
The Weathertight Homes Resolution Service (WHRS) was “often too slow and unnecessarily drawn out by lawyers and experts”, he said.

The government has allocated $30.5 million in this year’s Budget to reform the system. Money has also been set aside to provide advice to owners of leaky homes and also to those who design and build; a move that Cosgrove said “will lift consumer confidence in the housing market”.

The Weathertight Homes Resolution Service Amendment Bill introduced to Parliament just over a month ago will enable these reforms to pass into law:

· a new specialist Weathertight Homes Tribunal administered by the Ministry of Justice
· greater powers for adjudicators
· a requirement for local authorities to place WHRS notices on the Land Information Memorandum reports on affected properties
· beefed up assessment reports for claimants, and
· changes to voting thresholds for class actions.