Compliance schedules for specified system

Specified systems help ensure a building is safe and healthy for people to enter, occupy or work in. Buildings that contain certain safety and essential systems, like automatic fire sprinklers, fire alarms, lifts or air-conditioning systems) need a compliance schedule.

These items require ongoing inspection and maintenance to ensure they function as required because if they fail to operate properly, they have the potential to affect your health and safety.

The compliance schedule lists the building’s specified systems, the performance standards and the inspection, maintenance and reporting procedures needed to keep them in good order. To verify these responsibilities have been met, you need to display a building warrant of fitness every 12 months.

Compliance schedules

When a building consent requires a new or amended compliance schedule we will now issue a draft compliance schedule for the new and altered systems with your building consent documents.  The draft compliance schedule will confirm performances for design, installation, inspection and maintenance.  This new process means we are able to accelerate issuing compliance schedules with less questions when code compliance certification (CCC) is applied for. 

Click here for more detailed information on compliance schedules.

Building Warrant of Fitness (BWoF)

A Building Warrant of Fitness (BWOF) is an annual declaration by the building owner which is displayed in a public place.  It states that the specified systems have been maintained in accordance with the Compliance Schedule.

The lockdown requirements of COVID-19 meant some inspection and maintenance procedures could not be undertaken placing building owners in breach of the BWoF regime requirements.  QLDC have adopted the Ministry of Building Innovation and Employments (MBIE) advice requiring a building system status report be displayed in lieu of BWoF.

Compliance officers here at QLDC undertake audits of buildings with a BWoF to ensure the building owners and IQPs are for fulling their obligations.

Click here for more detailed information on Building Warrant of Fitness.

An update from Chris English

What a difference from when the last Brace Yourself was sent out! COVID has certainly had an effect on the number of building consent applications received. Over the last two years, building consent applications have averaged 160 per month. In March when COVID locked down the country, the building services unit received 145 consents, in April 116 consents and in May 124 consents. Commercial consents, understandably, have dropped significantly. Residential consents in Wanaka in particular has remained strong with Queenstown at reduced numbers.

To demonstrate how busy the construction industry was in the Queenstown Lakes area prior to COVID, this financial year we were well on track to exceed $1bn of consent construction value. Even with COVID, approximately $970m of construction will be consented. In the previous year this figure was $850m and the year before $750m.

People may have noticed code of compliance certificates (CCC’s) are taking longer than normal to be issued. This is due to building control officers working on older CCC’s during lockdown and getting them to the stage of issue. This work along with high numbers of current CCC applications and the fact the inspection staff, who process them, have been extremely busy on inspections, has seen the timeframe to issue pushed out. We will be aiming to get back to normal issue times as soon as possible.

Building act reforms
Building levy rate reduced and more

• The building levy rate will be reduced from $2.01 to $1.75 for all consents received from 1 July 2020.
• The scope of exempt building work under schedule 1 of the Building Act is increasing.  MBIE anticipate the exemptions to commence at the end of August.  See further details on MBIEs website. A reminder that  due diligence should be undertaken for compliance with the district plan and exempt work must still comply with the building code. 
•  Public submissions are open until the 10th of July for the Building (Building Products and Methods, Modular Components, and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. Visit building.govt.nz for more information. 

Meet the app making it easy to reduce waste construction. 

Construction and demolition waste accounts for more than 30% of the material sent to Victoria Flats landfill via our districts transfer stations. That’s more than 200 tonnes per week! A large portion of this unwanted material could have been given second life but how does one make this an easy option for those in the construction industry?

CivilShare is a marketplace app for users to buy, sell, trade, and share resources.

While relatively new to our Southern Lakes District, the impact of CivilShare will grow exponentially as new members join. To help this happen, Wanaka’s Better Building Working Group recently received funding from QLDCs Waste Minimisation Community Fund to undertake a campaign focussed on promoting CivilShare in the district.

“The funding will help us address the industry’s waste on a local level and take positive steps as a community to keep building resources in circulation. By signing up to and using CivilShare, the value of surplus or ex demo material can be increased while decreasing the cost of disposal,” group spokesperson Ruth Blunt of Wastebusters said.

QLDC’s Waste Minimisation Officer, Kath Buttar said, “QLDC are committed to enabling private and community sector development of construction and demolition waste recovery opportunities and are delighted to support the Better Building CivilShare campaign. Certain materials can be diverted through our transfer stations, for example scrap metal which can be dropped off free of charge, and work is underway to expand these diversion opportunities. In the meantime, platforms like CivilShare are a complementary and innovative way to connect people and resources directly, accelerating waste minimisation and sustainable practices in the construction industry.”

CivilShare is free, uncomplicated and intuitive. Users can create a listing of resources, equipment or labour, or set up a notification for a specific item they might want. Don’t take our word for it – try it yourself. Sign up to CivilShare through civilshare.co.nz or your app store.

Amendments and Minor Variations

Building Act Section 45 states how to apply for building consent. Section 45 (4) states if the amendment is not a minor variation it must be processed as if it were an application for building consent.

Section 45A of the Act enables a council to grant a minor variation prior to or during construction without having to go through the formal process of issuing an amendment to the building consent. However, the council must record the granting of the minor variation in writing. 

Generally, where the work is outside the scope of the original consent (for example, additional footprint or increases in floor area, construction method, or significant changes to the layout), this would require an amendment for the new work to be undertaken. Amendments generally result when the change impacts on a number of Building Code clauses and could have planning implications.

A minor variation is a change that does not usually affect compliance with the Building Code it simply achieves the same outcome in a different way.

These fall into two categories; minor variations reviewed by processors at the office or minor variations reviewed on site by the inspector.   

See real examples in our assessment tool below (click to view a larger image):

Further guidance can be found on MBIE’s website.

Determinations

• 2018/011 Refusal to issue an amended building consent for building work.
• 2017/068 Amendment to a building consent for an apartment building with tiled decks.