NZ has a $2.5b building defect problem. Will self‑certification make it better or worse? |
New Zealand has no shortage of stark statistics that illustrate the scale of its housing crisis.
Its average house value currently amounts to nearly six times the average household income. Around 20,000 households remain on the social housing waiting list, while the government spends billions of dollars each year on temporary accommodation.
The country also has fewer homes per person than the OECD average, contributing to an estimated shortfall of tens of thousands of homes over the past few decades.
There is another set of numbers, however, that receives far less attention. That’s the 20,000-plus building inspections which fail each year, creating tens of millions of dollars in avoidable costs while making housing even more expensive.
Part of the government’s response to the crisis has been to make the building consent process faster and cheaper by expanding self-certification for trusted residential building companies.
The reforms are intended to reduce consenting costs, inspection delays and regulatory bottlenecks by allowing approved firms building simple residential homes to certify that their own work complies with the New Zealand Building Code.
But building better depends on more than a trade qualification. Unless these reforms are accompanied by structural, data-driven measures that improve quality on........