Commercial Buildings

If you’re planning work on an industrial or commercial building, you’ll need to provide more information than for a regular building consent. You may benefit from a pre-application meeting if you are embarking on a new project or development.

Specified Systems and Compliance Schedule

When you apply for a Building Consent for a new (or existing) building with specified systems, you will need to provide information with your application to enable the council to compile (or amend) a compliance schedule including proposed inspection, maintenance and reporting procedures for specified systems.

Specified systems are systems or features that help a building to function fully - things like sprinklers, lifts, ventilation and air conditioning. These systems are crucial to the safety and health of a building and those who use it. As a building owner it is your responsibility to ensure the systems are inspected and maintained according to the compliance schedule. If they fail to work properly they could adversely affect health or life safety, which may also affect your insurance cover. There are 16 specified systems in the Building Act. These must be identified on your building consent application form.

The council will require details of the design features of the specified systems and proposed procedures for inspection, maintenance and reporting so they can be included in the compliance schedule. This will also include the performance standard a specified system is intended to meet, and to continue to meet, for the life of the building. For example, a fire alarm system may be required to meet New Zealand Standard 4512.

When we issue a building consent we will state whether the building requires a compliance schedule. A compliance schedule states the specified systems and their performance standards, and includes the inspection, maintenance and reporting procedures needed to keep them in good working order.

The building consent will identify what documentation you need to provide to Council when construction is complete, before a code compliance certificate and compliance schedule can be issued. This may include certificates from installers of specified systems, testing and commissioning results, and third party verification from accredited inspection bodies for fire alarms and sprinkler systems as required by New Zealand Standards

Council are required to issue a compliance schedule and compliance schedule statement for new buildings, or amend a compliance schedule where any specified systems are added, altered or removed in a building. The compliance schedule is issued with the code compliance certificate. A compliance schedule statement is a document that is issued once and only with a new compliance schedule.

The compliance schedule statement must be displayed in a public part of the building for the first 12 months of the building’s life. This is usually inside the front foyer or ground floor reception area.

To initiate a change to the compliance schedule, you need to apply for an amendment. Complete the form below and submit it to us with the accompanying fee.

For further information please refer to the MBIE website.

Referrals to Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ)

There is a requirement for some applications to be sent to the FENZ Fire Engineering Unit.

Further information regarding the types of applications that must be sent to FENZ can be found on the New Zealand Gazette website.

Certificate for Public Use

Before any part of a building affected by building work can be used by the public, you must get a code compliance certificate (CCC) or certificate for public use (CPU). It’s an offence not to.

Your application for CPU needs to describe the precautions you will take to protect people using the building until the CCC is issued. This should include any specified systems, how people would escape from a fire and access and facilities for people with disabilities.

You can only apply for a certificate for public use if a building consent has been granted but the code compliance certificate has not been issued. You will still need to apply for a code compliance certificate once the building work has been completed.

For further information on public access while building please refer to the MBIE website.

For further information on CCC’s please refer to the MBIE website.

If you applied for your building consent from 1 August 2017 onwards, please apply for a code compliance certificate online.

Apply online

If you applied for your building consent prior to 1 August 2017, please apply using the form below.

Pallet Racking

Pallet racking installations require building consent. Applications for consent must have appropriate documentation to show that the installation will comply with the Building Code.

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