Building consents : Christchurch City Council

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

COVID-19 update

Under Alert Level 2, on-site building inspections and processing of building consents will continue.

If appropriate safety protocols are not in place on a worksite our building inspectors will be unable to carry out the booked inspection. In these cases, we will need to charge our normal inspection fee for the visit.

Processing delays

We are currently receiving a high number of building consent applications, which has caused a severe delay in our processing times. This situation wasn’t predicted, with commentators expecting a downturn in building activity due to COVID, in fact, the opposite has happened.

This challenge isn’t unique to us either – consenting teams around the country are struggling to keep up with demand. There simply aren’t enough qualified people available to process consents and inspect building work.

We understand that people need certainty to move forward with their plans – we are sorry this situation is affecting all of us.

What we're doing

We have new staff currently undergoing training and recruitment for more staff is continuing. This isn’t an immediate fix but will help ease pressure in the future.
We are currently using contractors to process applications, but this is limited as they are also at capacity.
We are exploring other initiatives to help get us through the amount of work in front of us.

What you can do to help

Please plan ahead and allow more time than normal to complete your build.
Where possible, get relevant approvals from other areas of Council, such as resource consent and three waters, before applying for building consent.
When completing your application, ensure you complete all fields and provide the required supporting documents. There are application checksheets below that can assist with this. Bookmarking your documents will also help.
In response to a request for information (RFI), please:
- include a list of the changes you have made
- include only the relevant pages
- mark all changes with a cloud for easy identification
We are also asking that you don’t block book inspections in advance or before you’re ready.

We know the delay is frustrating and challenging for you but we feel you also deserve to know how the nationwide situation is affecting us, and what impact it will have on your project. We are doing our best to keep up with what is a very busy time for everyone.

Thank you for your patience while we work through this.

Find out more

You can apply for a building consent online. For advice prior to applying for a 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. A building consent establishes that your proposed building work complies with the building code.

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.