The Queenstown Lakes District community is being warned to prepare for the inevitable implications of Central Government's Building Act 2004.

The Queenstown Lakes District Council's regulatory and hearings panel will receive a briefing paper at its meeting on Tuesday (September 7) from regulatory contractor CivicCorp's building manager Peter Laurenson.

"There is no question that the Act will see an overall rise in the cost of building work," Mr Laurenson said.

Initial parts of the Act were scheduled to come into force by November this year (2004) with the majority applied by March next year (2005).

CivicCorp staff were actively in the process of interpreting and understanding the act, through national training and workshop sessions, targeting Council's New Zealand-wide.

Stemming in main from the 'leaky building crisis', the new Act takes a far more prescriptive approach. In summary, it would introduce a new framework for the regulation of building work, establish a new licensing regime for builders and set new performance standards for buildings.

"Once we are up to speed with the Act, the next step will be to hold both public and building industry information sessions and workshops. We expect quite a strong education campaign from Central Government," Mr Laurenson said.

At this time the Council wanted to generate an element of preparation in the community.

"We are still fully understanding the new role that is being handed to us but one guide is that a recently compiled national estimate of the expected increase in the consent and inspection process was 42.5 percent," Queenstown Lakes District Council chief executive Duncan Field said.

People with projects pending would be wise to consider the implications and start to factor the cost increases, he said.

"The Act prescribes that we must undertake additional scrutiny of plans, additional site visits, increase inspection detail and undertake additional staff training and accreditation of inspectors," Mr Field said.

The bigger cost implication would sit with new material, design and construction standards.

The positive promoted by Central Government was that in the future there would be fewer building failures, less or reduced maintenance costs and buildings would last longer.

According to a study released by the Ministry of Economic Development, the expected average increase in net building costs would be approximately three percent, Mr Laurenson said.

The final financial impact on the Queenstown Lakes District was still being assessed.

"We are in the process of identifying the increases in costs applicable to our area, which will be presented in a separate paper to the Council," Mr Laurenson said.

The discussion paper can be found on the Council website www.qldc.govt.nz  in the regulatory and hearings committee agenda.

By: Kiri