KEY POINTS:
Major house building companies could get a single, virtually automatic national building permit, and building research funding would be scrapped in favour of a nationwide building insurance fund under radical proposals being considered by the Government.
Building and Construction Minister Shane Jones is looking at plans outlined by Northland's three mayors and their senior building staff to increase housing affordability by reducing consent processes and paperwork costs.
Far North Mayor Wayne Brown, Whangarei Mayor Stan Semenoff and Kaipara Mayor Neil Tiller believe the blueprint they are offering to Mr Jones could cut the cost of building a house by thousands of dollars.
The trio of mayors have told Mr Jones his department had "fixed the paper but not the buildings" and that logic and common sense had to re-enter the building process.
Key options put to the minister during a meeting in Mr Semenoff's Whangarei mayoral office include:
* Stop the funding the Building Research Association of New Zealand gets from building permit and consent fees charged by councils and use this money to set up a pool of insurance funds for payment to home owners in cases of building failures.
* Issue a single, national building permit to group housing companies.
* Allow minor changes to building plans during construction instead of having to stop building and starting the consent process again.
* Stop focusing on paperwork by demanding pages of detailed plans and focus instead on houses.
Prime Minister Helen Clarke has told Parliament the Government is looking at a range of initiatives to make housing more affordable. Mr Jones will report to her with options next month.
Mr Jones said statements by Mr Brown and Mr Semenoff in the Herald last month that "gold plated" building standards and consent processes were part of the [home affordability] problem had attracted the Prime Minister's attention as well as his own.
Mr Brown, an engineer and developer, said there was no sense in about one third of council building permit fees paid by potential home owners going to fund building research.
"They use the money to research new building products that companies want to sell to me. Why would I as a customer want to pay for that. They should pay, not me."
He believes the permit money should instead be paid into a cash pool available to compensate house owners with problems caused in cases where the building company collapsed or the builder disappeared.
An insurance-type fund would offer security and the fund holders could license builders. Repeated claims against a builder could see that person is denied a building licence.
Mr Brown estimates another one third of building permit fees - which can range between $7000 and $10,000 for an average new house - go towards council inspections and the remaining third to the Government's "Building and Housing bureaucracy".
Development contributions can be another $20,000 on top of that.
The mayors have agreed that group housing companies with standardised plans and construction methods could be issued with a national building permit. They would be subject to building inspections but consent authorities would not have to study many pages of plans for every house.
Mr Jones has given a commitment that his department will look into the suggested building insurance scheme.
He said about 56,000 residential building permits were issued nationally each year.
WHAT MAYORS WANT
* Building permit and consent fees to go to an insurance scheme for failed homes, not research on new building methods.
* A national building permit for housing companies building standardised homes.
