Regional Councils as Building Consent Authorities for Dams – The first 20 years

Today (31 March 2025) marks the 20th anniversary of the building control provisions of the Building Act 2004 coming into force for dams.  This included commencement of sections 12 to 14 of the Act and the transfer of building control responsibilities for dams from territorial authorities to regional authorities.

For regional councils (but not unitary authorities) this was significant as it coincided with the introduction of Building Consent Authorities (BCA’s) and the requirement for BCAs to gain and maintain accreditation.  This created a difficult situation as regional councils had to develop and document processes as well as demonstrate competence to IANZ’s standards ahead of taking on the function. I led Otago Regional Council’s accreditation process – ORC was the first regional council to be accredited as a BCA for dams, in 2008.

Transition arrangements were also problematic as the transfer of responsibility took place on the day the regional council became registered as a BCA – the Act did not provide for a lead-in period or staged transition.  This required careful coordination with the territorial authorities as regional councils took on consent applications in progress as well as decision-making on issuing CCCs for building consents that had been issued by the territorial authority. The situation was challenging, partly because of the higher standards expected of BCAs especially around evidence of decision-making. I became involved in decision-making on COAs where evidence of compliance with the building consent, or departures from the approved plans had occurred.

A further complexity was that regional councils had agreed to transfer their BCA functions to a smaller group of councils comprising ORC, Environment Canterbury and Waikato Regional Council. In the case of Otago, West Coast Regional Council and Environment Southland transferred to ORC which meant that all 11 territorial authorities across the 3 regions simultaneously transferred their BCA functions for dams to ORC.  I led the development and implementation of the transfer arrangements and then had oversight of the arrangements, including decision-making on legacy building consents and COAs across the three regions. The transfer arrangements across the sector have endured and been further refined.  It’s a good example of council collaboration to deliver efficiency.

The background to all this is described in these papers I prepared in 2007 and 2009.

NZSOLD ANCOLD 2007 Palmer.pdf

Download PDF • 7.38MB

NZSOLD Symposium 2009 Palmer.pdf

Download PDF • 8.93MB

My other post provides some background to the dam safety management part of the Act.