Building issue ‘public relations nightmare’

A government department has criticised the Invercargill City Council over its handling of building information, a situation that has now been described as a ‘‘public relations nightmare’’.

The information needed relates to buildings’ warrant of fitness, and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has asked the council to be ‘‘more vigilant’’.

The council has backtracked to building owners for missing information, but some are not happy with the threat of a $500 penalty.

Council building services manager Brendan Monaghan, at a council regulatory services committee on Tuesday, said in the past the council had not inspected the information ‘‘as we should have’’.

A building manager had called the situation a public relations nightmare, Monaghan said.

After the wake-up call from the ministry, the council discovered historic omissions to some building warrants of fitness.

Monaghan’s report to the councillors says because of the building department’s increased vigilance, and requests for more information, building owners may need to engage independently qualified persons to complete their files.

Independently qualified persons, employed to perform annual checks, often supply the warrant on the owner’s behalf. The report says the additional work could place additional costs to building owners.

A building warrant of fitness document displayed in a building.

The Building Act requires councils to issue a compliance schedule to all commercial and industrial buildings that have an active specified system - including sprinklers, automatic doors that close on alarm, emergency warning and fire alarms.

Monaghan believed it would take the council a year to ‘‘get on top of it’’.

One month before warrant expiry the council sent a reminder. If incorrect information was supplied, council sent a letter requesting specific information, generally within seven days.

If information was not received, the council sent a notice to fix, carrying a is a $500 penalty outlining laws broken and action required, with a further seven-day timeframe.

Since writing the report, one $500 infringement was issued, for a building for which information was four months out of date, Monaghan said.

The council has records of more than more than 900 buildings required to have an annual warrant of fitness.

There was an 80 per cent compliance, with the correct information requested, Monaghan said.

‘‘But there are a number who have failed to provide their information ... so we are upping our game.’’

The council had sent several notices, he said.

‘‘In some cases, it was several months out of date.’’

Cr Lindsay Thomas said the issue had been ‘‘a real bone of contention’’.

‘‘I have had four complaints myself around this,’’ he said.

That very morning, Cr Thomas received a letter from a building owner.

In January, the owner had a notice from the council, with the invoice for $500, he said.

The $500 infringement might be ‘‘heavy-handed’’, Cr Thomas said.

‘‘There’s some very frustrated people out there, and I’ve got real concerns about how we’re actually managing the whole process.

‘‘These people just want to get on with their business.’’

Cr Thomas said the process seemed ‘‘hellish and hard’’ for building owners.

Monaghan said he too was getting a lot of feedback.

With the process there was always the potential to get ‘‘offside with some people’’, he said.

One building manager in the city called it ‘‘a public relations nightmare’’.

The same manager had done nothing to put his building warrant of fitness into the council since August last year, Monaghan said.

‘‘It’s a nightmare because we’ve called them out on it.’’

He said some called it unfair they were being pressed for information - but it was sometimes just phone numbers or addresses missing.

The council has uncovered changes the council should have been made aware of, he said.

‘‘It could have been done better.’’