Council to consider feedback on Government’s ‘granny flats’ proposal

Christchurch City Council will consider giving feedback next week on the Government’s proposal to make it easier for people to build “granny flats”.

On 7 August, Councillors will consider a report on making a submission on the Government’s recently released discussion document, “Making it easier to build granny flats”.

Read the Council report and draft submission.

The Government is looking to streamline the building of small, self-contained and detached houses, commonly known as granny flats, on properties with an existing home on them. 

It is proposing to create a National Environmental Standard (NES) to allow granny flats without resource consent in rural and residential zones, as well as waiving building consents for simple stand-alone houses up to 60 square metres in size.    

The Council’s draft submission generally supports the Government’s efforts to address the long-standing issue of housing affordability, but also notes that “single-level detached units, such as granny flats, are an inefficient land use in larger metropolitan environments”.

It points out that the Government’s proposal could conflict with its broader goals of housing intensification currently set out in the National Policy Statement for Urban Development (NPS-UD) and Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS).

The draft submission seeks an exemption from the proposed NES for “Tier 1” councils, including Christchurch, due to the significant housing intensification already required by those councils under the NPS-UD and MDRS.

It also highlights a risk to homeowners by exempting granny flats from building consent, saying that the current Licensed Building Practitioners scheme does not provide enough oversight to ensure buildings comply with all current regulations.

Council staff have put forward several alternative approaches, including using the Building Amendment Act 2012 framework to create a "simple building consent" category for minor residential units, “which would simplify the consent process without removing necessary oversight,” the draft submission says.