Building consents : Christchurch City Council

The Christchurch City Council is responsible for issuing building consents within Christchurch and Banks Peninsula.

Processing timeframes

29 May update:

The information below is updated at the beginning of the week and is accurate as of that time.

Current wait times

Our current wait times to start processing a consent application are:

Residential: All applications: within 23 working days. Check the status of your building consent to get an estimation of when your application will begin processing.
Commercial: All applications: within five working days.

Due to the 1 May deadline for the new Energy Efficiency provisions, a significant number of applications have been received which is impacting time frames going forward.

For April 2023, we processed applications (including amendments) within 20 working days:

Residential: 85.3% (for May to-date 86.5%)
Commercial: 86.5% (for May to-date 78.5%)

We thank you for your patience and understanding.

What we're doing

Upskilling our current staff in order to process higher complexity applications.
Continuing to use contractors to process applications.
Processing officers (BCO's) are working overtime to get through the work.
We are continuing to investigate other initiatives to help get us through the amount of work in front of us.

What you can do to help

Where possible, get relevant approvals from other areas of the Council, such as resource consent and three waters, before applying for building consent.
Please make sure you complete all fields and provide the required supporting documents when completing your application.

In response to a request for information (RFI):

Include a list of the changes you have made.
Include only the relevant pages.
Mark all changes with a cloud for easy identification.

Find out more

You can apply for building consent online. For advice prior to applying for building consent contact DutyBCO@ccc.govt.nz

For more information about inspections, or to book, please phone our Inspections Support Team on 03 941 8222 or 0800 800 169.

A building consent is a formal approval to undertake building work in accordance with approved plans and specifications. It establishes that your proposed building work complies with the building code and after we have issued the building consent, we undertake inspections during construction and issue a code compliance certificate when the building work is all completed.

Check the status of your building consent

Enter your building consent number in full (e.g. BCN/2022/555) to view the current status or estimated start date. Your building consent number can be found in the email confirmation you were sent when you submitted your building consent application.