The wood on tree houses
Dangerously non-compliant, or essential for encouraging kids to put down their devices and go wild outdoors? Hamish McNeilly reports.
Like all good stories, this one starts in a treehouse. And once upon a time in a backyard in suburban Mosgiel, near Dunedin, children had fun playing in a treehouse built by their granddad.
As they were having fun, a neighbour huffed and puffed to the council over a loss of privacy. Soon building inspectors arrived and declared there was no loss of privacy, but the treehouse wasn’t code-compliant. Tear down that treehouse, they said, but the owner said no.
Soon everyone heard about the treehouse and the big bad council.
So a local councillor stepped in and said a local club would fix the treehouse and make it codecomplaint, and everyone lived happily ever after and went back to their screens.
The end. Or is it just the end of child’s play?
‘It gets them away from devices’
Mosgiel mum Janice NormanOke prefers her children Logan, 6, Devon, 10, and Ethan, 12, to play outside. And it is easy to see why: she has a sizeable backyard, complete with a trampoline, balls, Nerf bullets and a non-compliant treehouse nestled in a plum tree.
That treehouse, built by the children’s grandfather, is popular with neighbourhood kids who prefer to play war outside than video games inside.
Norman-Oke says the treehouse provides an opportunity for her children to go outside and get some fresh air, and to exercise while encouraging team-building, independence and selfresponsibility. ‘‘Gets them away from devices, using their brains,’’ she says, and ‘‘they learn what they can and can’t do physically’’.
The structure was completed in April, but attracted a complaint from its neighbour in its first week. That neighbour, Rachael Morris, told Stuff that ‘‘I have nothing against children having fun, [but] when they start sitting and looking into our house, blowing whistles . . . I was just going to see where I sit with privacy with the council.’’
Norman-Oke argues that the treehouse, which is due to be rebuilt on Saturday, shouldn’t have to meet all the specific building codes. ‘‘And as a parent I should be able to decide what is safe and what is not for my own children.’’
But is that a good thing?
The academic
Scott Duncan is pleased the public got upset over the treehouse. ‘‘It is good there is a kickback on this. It would be worse if no-one cares about it.’’
And he should know. The father of three is also an associate professor at AUT’s School of Sport and Recreation, and advocates risky play for children.
‘‘Making mistakes and hurting yourself can actually be a really important learning experience for kids.’’
It was particularly important for children to learn how to manage risk on a small scale.
‘‘It might be just climbing a tree, but that risk management stays with them, and as they get older they don’t have to test out their risk limits in cars, fighting in bars and things like that.’’
Duncan built a backyard platform for Jamie, 9, Ollie, 7, and Sophie, 5, and it has been a family bonding exercise.
He recommends children build their own treehouse, or repurpose items such as tyres, tarpaulins, ropes; ‘‘things that kids can create games with’’. ‘‘When you give them a piece of playground equipment that is for a purpose, there is no real creativity in that, but if you give them an object, like bricks or planks, and there is no purpose behind that, then their imagination kicks in.’’
And yes, the children might hurt themselves, but that is part of learning, he argues.
In modern life there is parental peer pressure for people ‘‘to adhere to what is right, proper and sensible’’.
He consciously rebels against that cotton-wool style of parenting. And when his children did something ‘‘wild and crazy’’, they came back happier than if they did something safe and structured with an adult.
Part of the problem is children using devices. ‘‘We don’t know the long-term implication of this really intensive screen time, because it has only just started . . . what impact it has is uncertain, but I am not holding a lot of hope.’’
Playing outside and taking risks isn’t abnormal to many parents, who can recall their own pre-device childhoods. ‘‘They still know what it is like to be free when they are playing.’’
Last year, Auckland council ordered the removal of a swing
on a berm, over concerns with health and safety, Duncan says. ‘‘It is always curious to me how [councils] still act surprised that there is a kickback.’’
Councils
But it appears calls to investigate and remove illegal treehouses have taken root elsewhere.
Under the Building Act, exemptions for private household playground equipment are only for structures less than three metres off the ground. The Mosgiel treehouse was 2.9m before safety rails were installed, and it isn’t the only treehouse to have attracted the attention of Dunedin City Council (DCC) in recent years.
Another complaint at an undisclosed location prompted a structure to be removed.
This month Christchurch City Council received its first complaint in several years concerning a treehouse.
Tracey Weston, head of regulatory compliance, says that, as that complaint is under investigation, ‘‘we cannot comment further at this time’’.
The investigation into Morris’ complaint found the treehouse did not breach her privacy, but there were concerns with barriers, structure, durability and access to stairs, ladders and handrails.
The country’s largest local authority, Auckland Council, is the only council spoken to by
Stuff that said it is unable to search records for treehouserelated issues, and could not provide numbers.
But Steve Pearce, regulatory compliance manager, says issues over treehouses ‘‘are not common’’. ‘‘Generally speaking, tree huts can be built without consent. However, they should be less than 3m above the ground below, and not in any protected trees.’’
Hamilton City Council says it has received just one complaint ‘‘in relation to a treehouse and we have not ordered any to be taken down’’.
Wellington has had no complaints for well over a decade, while Invercargill, Tauranga and Nelson have no reports of non-compliant treehouses in recent years.
The rules
Dave Robson, of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, says the Building Code does not specifically refer to ‘‘treehouses’’. However, as a treehouse is a structure, it is therefore a building under the Building Act.
As such, it must comply with the act. However, there are some exemptions, including ‘‘private playground equipment’’.
Robson says councils have discretionary powers ‘‘to exempt whatever building work it considers appropriate’’.
But even if exempt of the need for building consent, work must nevertheless comply with the Building Code, further compounding the issue for budding treehouse builders.
Councils can prosecute over unconsented buildings, as well as issuing ‘‘notices to fix’’ for non-compliant building work – as was the case with the Mosgiel treehouse.
MBIE, which does not collate information on unconsented treehouses, is reluctant to comment on the Mosgiel example, particularly the safety rails putting it over the 3m height limit, referring comments to the Dunedin council.
‘‘The building consent authority (the DCC in this case) is responsible for making a ruling on the suitability of structures within their jurisdiction,’’ Robson says.
DCC principal adviser building solutions Neil McLeod says it ‘‘doesn’t go looking for issues like this, but we received a complaint about the treehouse which we were obliged to follow up’’.
‘‘The structure doesn’t fit any of the exemptions under the Building Act so our staff have no option but to enforce the rules.’’
Falling out of a tree
So just how dangerous is a treehouse?
The Accident Compensation Corporation searched for claims involving treehouses over the past three years. And a word of caution: the statistics could not distinguish between accidents inside treehouses, around them, or during the building of them.
Nevertheless, the figures show 403 people suffered injuries near a treehouse between 2015-16 and 2017-18.
The overwhelming age group represented in the statistics were those aged up to 9 years, with 250 children suffering treehouserelated injuries.
Those aged 40 and over accounted for just 52 injuries over the same three years.
That is probably reassuring for Scott Duncan, who is urging parents to change their parenting styles and encourage children to take risks ‘‘or the next generation of parents would not have experienced that’’.
‘‘And then it is really hard to go back. To us it seems the abnormal thing now is overprotecting our kids.
‘‘We have to act now while we still have a generation who remembers what it is like to be free-range.
‘‘Letting them explore and letting them get into mishaps is part of childhood.’’