Auckland Council has released two videos to highlight shoddy building work across the city. Photo / Auckland Council
Auckland Council has released two videos to highlight shoddy building work across the city. Photo / Auckland Council
Association pans dodgy practices after seeing video
Auckland Council is refusing to divulge details about a shoddy, partially-built housing development that the Master Builders Association says deliberately flouts the law.
The council yesterday posted a video of the large, multi-unit terrace development on its news website showing structural issues with concrete block work, foundation issues and a lack of reinforcing steel.
Last night, the council's building control chief, Ian McCormick, said the video of the development and a second walk-through video of issues with another new build were posted to highlight the challenges in the industry.
The council has reported up to one-third of all building inspections are being failed and two sites a week are being shut down because of dangerous excavation work.
Master Builders Association chief executive David Kelly told the Herald he had seen the video of the multi-unit development, saying it showed really dodgy work practices that deliberately flouted the law.
The work, he said, did not meet the structural requirements of the building code, making the properties vulnerable in an earthquake.
"It is dangerous stuff and good on Auckland Council for cracking down on it," he said.
Mr McCormick declined to identify the development or the developer, who looks in the video to have completed some of the terraced units ready for sale or occupation.
He said the council was investigating whether any of the properties at the development met the code and had requested assessments from the developer.
"Until we are confident it complies with the building code we will be requiring whatever remedial action needs to be taken to achieve that," he said.
Mr McCormick said it would be extremely unlikely remedial action would go as far as a rebuild on the development, but said there were other cases where that could occur.
He said at one large new home in West Auckland a series of inspections had failed. The developer had been instructed on three occasions to stop work to get an engineer's report, but he had continued to build and the site had been closed down.
Mr McCormick said concern about shoddy building work was increasing as the city intensifies and more challenging infill housing sites become worth building on.
This has prompted the appointment of a fulltime council investigator to lay complaints with professional licensing bodies.
After the Herald posted two videos with the approval of the council yesterday, the council removed them from YouTube and replaced them with two videos of another home build in West Auckland.
Last night, a council spokeswoman said she did not know why the videos had been taken down.
Wonky buildings
• Council posts video to highlight shoddy building work.
