Council red tape is compounding Covid-related staffing issues, supply shortages and escalating prices in Dunedin’s building sector, and some business owners are starting to buckle under the pressure, a former Dunedin tradesman says.
Dunedin real estate agent Chris Adams, a former plumber, quit the industry several years ago, but he remains in contact with many in the sector.
Mr Adams said he held concerns for the mental health of some, and others had already walked away from their livelihoods in frustration.
"It’s a combination of a lot of things, really, but it’s really quite dire. It’s quite bad out there," he said.
Beyond material shortages and escalating supply costs, long waits for Dunedin City Council inspections was a chief concern among builders, he said.
Then there were the delays as consent processes dragged on.
All applications received by the council are required to be processed within 20 working days, but when councils request more information, the application is paused.
Asking for more information on a consent was a tactic a council could use to ensure it met its statutory deadlines, Mr Adams said.
"It’s a deliberate ploy to stall. They’re just not processing them quick enough."
Mr Adams is not alone in making the allegation.
Dunedin builder Grant Hope-Cross said the same in October, and in 2016, the Otago Daily Times reported "many within the industry" believed the council was using requests for information to extend their deadlines.
The council has now responded, saying more than two-thirds of the applications it receives are incomplete.
It also says it is working to address delays, including by hiring more staff.
Yesterday the ODT spoke to a range of builders in Dunedin and the allegation was repeated, but only by respondents who did not want to be named.
"I deal with them [the council] frequently and ...
I’m saying to you that they are bloody slow," one said. "There’s no two ways about that. They have been for the last six, seven years."
Otago Master Builders president Hayden Davies said the complexity of consents had ratcheted up over the past decade.
Although at times he felt frustrated by "arduous" consenting processes, the quality of what was submitted could be the issue in some delayed applications, he said.
W Hamilton Building Ltd owner Bill Hamilton believed the council was being cautious due to increasing audits and regulations from Government.
"The councils aren’t making this stuff up. Most of them are pretty pragmatic. They want to simplify things as well," he said.
Council customer and regulatory general manager Claire Austin acknowledged a record number of building consent applications had put pressure on processing times and the situation was likely to get worse before it got better.
"Unfortunately, close to 70% of all applications we receive are incomplete, and the Building Act requires us to ‘stop the clock’ on the 20 working day timeframe while we seek more information."
Since January 1, the council had processed 70.6% of consent applications within the statutory timeframe and the average processing time was 15 working days, she said.
The average waiting time for an inspection was seven days and the council was recruiting more building inspectors.
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It is a years old issue. 15 years ago I submitted a planning application to the DCC. They immediately stopped the process and asked a single question by letter. I wrote back with the answer and then they asked another single question, which I wrote back again with a reply. I then got another single question, so far a few weeks had passed and it was an obvious a stalling tactic. I called the planning department and told them to just put all their questions in one letter and stop mucking me around. I then got a letter with 14 fairly benal questions, so I phoned up again and told the guy in no uncertain terms what I thought of him. He then proceeded to go through the list of 14 questions over the phone with me and within half an hour, he actually answered all of them himself, with the information he already had in my application in front of him.
The DCC spend far too much time fluffing around the edges of things, wasting money on things that are of no value, at the expense of core issues that really matter. In fact fluffer is probably a perfect job description for most of them!
Whilst I am sure all this bureaucracy is well intentioned, it is holding the country back and is quite farcical when you look at the conditions many poor souls are living in so called "permitted" existing housing stock. Really we as a country need a shorter, smarter version where countless bureaucrats don't get to clip the ticket. Government could also help progress by deregulation of basic tradie jobs, plumbing and electrical work, which are over protected at present and so people can't afford to get jobs done. This would help people improve their homes at more realistic cost. I belive we have too many vested interests in this country.
'Holding concerns for mental health' over delays is unnecessary. Has anyone gone barmy? He may mean stressors.