Minister confident code breaches minor

Building and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson believes it is unlikely an audit of consents issued by the city council will reveal any major building safety problems.

One of the reasons the city council has lost its accreditation to issue building consents is because International Accreditation New Zealand (Ianz) believes that some of the consents it has issued breach the Building Code and/or Act.

According to Ianz’s audit report those breaches have the ‘‘potential to cause damage to the property, other adjoining property or injury to people’’.

But Williamson yesterday downplayed those risks.

‘‘I have every expectation that anywhere where the code wasn’t met the issues will be minor and we are not looking at having to pull down buildings or any of the other gross exaggerations I have been hearing about how bad things are.

‘‘I might be proven wrong but I’m quite confident they’ll be technicalities about meeting the code and only a small correction needed in order to make them code-compliant.’’

Identifying any consents which might breach the code and checking the buildings they related to would be a top priority for the Crown manager, he said.

‘‘We don’t know the magnitude of that and we don’t know the timeframe but obviously we will make it a priority to do it.’’