The Christchurch City Council will continue to issue building consents despite having lost its accreditation to do so.
International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ) this morning issued a decision revoking the council's accreditation as a building consents authority, after it failed to improve its consenting process over the last month.
From next Monday, consents approved by the council will no longer be approved by IANZ - an independent accreditation authority.
However, this is unlikely to make any difference to the council, with Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker confirming business would continue as usual.
"Although the accreditation at this stage is to be withdrawn next week, it doesn't actually stop our ability in any legal form to do our work.
"We are still able to carry out all our other building functions like inspections [and] code of compliance certificates."
All building consent applications would continue to be processed, he said.
IANZ chief executive Llew Richards, who could not discuss specifics of the decision due to privacy issues, said in a statement issued this morning that a high level of responsibility was expected of any accreditation body.
"The critical issue is ensuring all issued building consents fully comply with the technical requirements of the Building Code and Building Act.
"For example, buildings must meet structural engineering standards, fire protection requirements and be weather-tight."
Dr Richards said any accredited building consent authorities had to ensure all staff members understood the specific standards required when approving consents.
"The people issuing consents must be technically competent to do so - and any limitations on their competence clearly understood.
"The BCA's [Building Consent Authority] competence review of its staff and an on-going audit of allocating work to competent people all need to be recorded and established as effective," he said.
These records were kept as evidence of compliance with the Building Act.
"Without such evidence, neither IANZ nor the building owners can have assurance the consenting process is sound," Dr Richards said.
Mr Parker and Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee have planned to meet on Wednesday.
The IANZ decision to revoke the council's accreditation as a building consents authority follows a one-month period in which the council was told to improve its consenting process.
The Government had also threatened to step in due to the local body's "repeated inability" to meet statutory time-frames for processing building consents.
Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson have been working on a contingency plan around the issue of the council's building consent authority accreditation.
The council received an average of 35 building applications a day in March and April, according to the agenda from this month's planning committee meeting.
This workload led council officers to report: "We have seen backlogs develop across all process steps - from pre-processing initial data entry through processing and into typing. The sheer volume exceeds capacity, and applicants are expressing a significant level of concern at this."
Mr Brownlee had previously hit out at the council's slow response, saying: "The council knew this workload was coming and hasn't adequately addressed it".
