Consents delayed by inspection failures
When you hear that 43 per cent of inspections are not passed for whatever reason that affects our ability to get a good statistic there.
David East
Consenting delays in Christchurch are being made worse by a nearly 50 per cent fail rate on building inspections, the city council says.Last month the council received, on average, 330 calls a day from builders wanting to book a building inspection. It has the capacity for about 230 inspections a day, meaning builders faced a five to six day wait.
Council building control and city rebuild director Peter Sparrow said 43 per cent of buildings failed inspections, which check if a structure meets building standards. In about 17 per cent of cases the builders were not even ready.
That was adding to the wait times, Sparrow said, because inspectors had to visit those sites again.
The council was ‘‘not squeaky clean’’ in the matter, he said, as when processing delays started builders began to bulk book inspections in advance even when there was a risk they might fail or not be ready. Their approach was compounding the earlier problem.
The council was working with the building industry to try and improve the pass rate, Sparrow said.
Last month The Press reported Stonewood Homes and Mike Greer Homes – Canterbury’s largest home builders – failed more than 34 per cent of their final inspections in the second half of last year.
Council regulation and consents committee chairman Cr David East said the numbers showed the council was not solely to blame for delays.
‘‘When you hear that 43 per cent of inspections are not passed for whatever reason that affects our ability to get a good statistic there because that is 43 per cent they have to go back to again.’’
In February the council did 4525 inspections and processed 742 building consents. 98 per cent of those consents were processed within the statutory timeframe. The bulk of the consents (666) were for residential properties. 99 per cent were processed within 20 working days.