ACT New Zealand, Parliament Buildings

Monday, November 17, 2008

Mr. Rodney Hyde MP ACT New Zealand, Parliament Buildings WELLINGTON 6011

Dear Mr. Hyde,

Congratulations on your recent success. I trust my small contribution helped your party into power.

I understand you will be empowered as Minister to reduce compliance costs and cut through the red tape introduced with the passing of the Building Act 2004. I have some suggestions how you might partially accomplish this goal. My contention is that residential swimming pools should be reclassified as “minor works” and exempted from the stringent requirements of the Building Act 2004, thus allowing them to be fast-tracked though Councils.

There is a vast difference between a “structure” that is a building used to house people, be safe and secure and free from destructive defect, and a plastic-lined hole in the ground that is predominately a recreational device for the use and benefit of Kiwi families, that just happens to be inaccurately defined in the Building Act as a “structure” by some committee. This definition is unfairly penalising and damaging the swimming pool industry in New Zealand.

New Zealand swimming pool industry people are small businessmen – often just sole traders, many having spent their whole working lifetime building pools. I estimate there are approximately 60,000 to 70,000 in-ground swimming pools installed in our country and many thousand more on-ground “Para Rubber” type home pools. In a good year, our industry contributes more than $250,000,000.00 annually to the economy

We appreciate the need of the Building Act 2004 as a means of eliminating substandard (leaking) housing and improving and controlling the activities of Builders in general, and applaud the move towards licensing - but much to our detriment, the swimming pool industry has not been considered in the 2004 Act.

Increased time needed by Council staff to work through the vast amount of detailed & often trivial information requested has made meeting the statuary 20 day rule (to process the Application) impossible for big city Councils to meet, as pool permit approvals are now averaging two or more months to approve, and in some cases, years. I am referring specifically to residential swimming pools, as commercial pool projects are beyond the scope of this letter.

A permit application for a $25,000 - $45,000 pool must progress through the same Council processing departments as a $1,000,000 home or $20,000,000 commercial building. This creates delays for pool builders and is unnecessarily time consuming for Councils, as in most

THE NEW ZEALAND MASTER POOL BUILDERS INCORPORATED 1 PO Box 17069 Greenlane Auckland 1050 Address all correspondence to: Secretary Ron Dixon (021) 708 717 NZMPBG cases all new residential swimming pools are simply clones of previously permitted structures that were installed by the builder over many previous years.

Private residential swimming pools may be divided into three main categories:

1. Prefab vinyl liner in-ground and vinyl liner on-ground pools 2. Prefab fiberglass factory moulded or sprayed on-site in-ground pools 3. Designer (sprayed shotcrete) cement pools.

The typical small residential concrete pool builder applies for ten to fifteen permits per year, the prefab pool people between 50 and 200 applications, and the on-ground vinyl pools upwards of one thousand applications per year. Each of the first two pools is installed within one to two weeks for a one or two man team – or typically one day for the fiberglass pool. This is very different to the typical residential home builder, who may only apply for two or three permits per year, then spend the best part of four to six months building the home.

You may see how the permit bottleneck is disastrous for pool builders, who need a continuity of work to remain financially viable. Pools are a “summer” thing, and often are not ordered until September/October (in the hope of a “pool for Christmas”) which these days will never happen. This is unfairly penalising the pool industry. Many pools are ordered once the weather warms up – and the customer wants his pool before summer ends – another “fat chance”

Typically, home pools are 4.5 x 9.0 meters and 1.5m or 1.8m deep are but in semi-rural areas sometimes up to 6.0m x 12.0m, but each one being structurally identical to the tens of thousands of previous pools installed by these companies. Councils used to issue “blanket approvals” for the “design and structural details”, and hold PS1 and B1 & B2 compliance details by a Registered Professional Engineer on file at their offices, and this speeded processing up, but this procedure has been disallowed in the Building Act 2004

A swimming pool Design Engineer can inspect the installation progress and issue a PS4 (Producer’s Statement – Design), and an experienced pool installer can issue a PS3 (Producer’s Statement - Construction Review). This should supposedly negate the need for Council engineers to double check the design & structural calculations supplied by the Professional Engineer and on-site construction on every application that is made. Yet these applications are circulated to all departments to be processed by Drainage, Town Planners and Council Engineers – if only to rubber stamp them after a period of time sitting in their in-tray - until it is forwarded to the next checking officer – and site visits made by Council “Inspectors”.

This is an unnecessary and futile waste of Council time, as many Councils are now already require a PS1 (Producer’s Statement), B1 & B2 (Quality & Durability) plans & calculations ($1,750) and more frequently requiring a PS4 from the Design Engineer – costing a further $950 to $1,200 cost to the consumer, and often a Resource Consent ($1600+) – for what? Why is there so much duplication of costly time and services? The amount of wasted Council time unnecessarily processing Permit Applications and the cost of Compliance is enormous – as much as 18% of the cost of the pool in many cases.

Item 3. pools (Designer sprayed shotcrete cement pools) are different in that each pool shape is custom designed by an Architect to the customer’s preference of shape and size, but the construction method and structural calculations remains consistent for all of these pools.

2 I do not understand why - that providing (a.) the permit application presented to Council complies with the Town Planning Act, (b.) does not contravene any Local By Law, and (c.) shows the location of compliant pool fencing (in accordance with the Fencing of Swimming Pool Act 1987) approval from Council to proceed with the construction is not immediately issued so that we can proceed earn our living?

Surely trivial non-vital information can be supplied retrospectively instead of choking the pool industry with delays? Why such trivia as the requirement for an architecturally drawn illustration and full written description of the type of lock proposed on a previously approved self-closing pool gate each time with a new application – and how subsequent delays in producing the detail can be used to hold up permit processing for weeks while this information is supplied, simply begs belief. And why a last minute change of the pool gate mechanism or the fence being moved closer to the pool by 500mm (but still complying) triggers a complete Approval re-application taking weeks, and costing a further $380 - holding work until the new (slightly different) information is provided?

Unfortunately, reasoned latitude is not the norm for Council staff in major urban areas such as Auckland – but strangely is applied in some of the smaller centers, which illustrates inconsistency of application by Council and serves to dishearten the city builders somewhat as “country town” Approvals are issued within the 20 – or less - prescribed days and at a cost of a few hundred dollars! Where’s the consistency? And why the differences?

We are constantly facing delays by Council staff putting “Stop Work” notices on the processing while they take ten or more days to deliver typing pool letters requiring trivial details on subjects that (a) should not stop the application’s approval process, (b) could be handled simply by a Section 37 which must be discharged before the Completion Certificate is issued. and (c) are slowly strangling the swimming pool industries’ cash flow.

Our members are by and large a group of hard working Kiwi taxpayers, who are being financially penalised by the lack of appreciation of the dramatic effects of slow Approvals being granted – Approvals that are vital to the continued viability of the pool industry.

We pool builders have a small window of opportunity to sell the pool, make permit applications and build the pool while the good weather is with us. Under re-vamped Council procedures, this would be eminently feasible, but in the current circumstances the snarl-up at Council level means that the pool ordered in spring will have no chance of being even started by February or March of the following year in many cases. Sometimes this causes cancelled contracts and often very unhappy customers, further penalising the pool builders for circumstances beyond their control. This year (2008) has been dreadful for a great many of us, with little forwards work and the ‘phones are not ringing!

In Auckland only a few years ago, many of the Councils had their staff vet new applications at the front desk, and providing the basics were there they would issue the permit immediately within one hour while you waited! As recent as 2003 this was commonplace and the cost was

THE NEW ZEALAND MASTER POOL BUILDERS INCORPORATED 3 PO Box 17069 Greenlane Auckland 1050 Address all correspondence to: Secretary Ron Dixon (021) 708 717 NZMPBG

$650.00. Now, it is typical (in Auckland again) for permits to cost $1,975.00 – a 300% increase in cost with no added benefit to the pool industry – with approvals taking months to process.

How can this be? We still have to pay our Professional Engineer upwards of $1,750 for detailed plans and specifications, provide a 100:1 scale site plan showing the pool location, the location and details of pool fencing, house and drainage position; the pool product remains the same; and Town Planning rules haven’t changed that much. Are city Councils so inefficient? This needs a serious reappraisal!

If it is not possible to redefine the Building Act 2004 definition of a home swimming pool as a “minor Works” perhaps there is an alternative:

It has been suggested to me by an Auckland Council staff member (who for obvious reasons wishes to remain anonymous) that we make the Approval application as usual (on the expectation that the application does not contravene any codes and will succeed) then commence work on the pool immediately after the statutory 20 days have passed, with Council either accepting the pool builder’s PS3, or the Design Engineer’s PS4. Then Council could issue a Certificate of Acceptance retrospectively – which I understand is permissible within Section 67 of the Building Act 2004.

The Building Act apparently has scope for Councils to make this concession, but would not do so without an official Determination from “the Authorities”. I also understand that Section 67 of the Act allows individual Councils on their own authority to waive the need for full prior explanations of ”minor details”, and issue a “Start Work” notice – providing the basic application conforms to the rules. Why – when the process allows it – are there rules not being utilised which would relieve a great deal of stress from pool builders?

To suggest to our Builder Members that they follow this suggestion seems a risk that they or their customer (although keen to get their pool in for summer) would not countenance in case “things went wrong”. I tend to agree with this position, but if the alternative of waiting months for approvals at the risk of my financial viability is the other option, then I would have to consider what was appropriate.

SUMMARY

Here is my suggestion to streamline swimming pool Approval applications:

1. Initial checking done by appointment with Town Planner at front desk to confirm compliance with planning rules, fencing, plumbing & drainage and other relevant bylaws regarding the pool position & fencing of the pool. A Processing Deposit of $1,000 and refundable Compliance Bond of $1,000 to be paid at this time.

(Time: 30 minutes – if it doesn’t pass muster at this meeting, must be re-applied for) (Assumptions: The pool has an engineering Blanket Approval for design & structure) (Application does NOT go to Structural check if design engineer is on Council’s approved list - or Drainage staff if there is simply a backwash line terminating in an air gap above a gully trap. This would save many days/weeks of Council time)

2. Basic Approval to proceed with construction of pool conditional on Section 37 issues being resolved at some stage is issued by Council staff and mailed to customer.

4 (Time: 1.0 hour)

Basic Approval gives permission to proceed with pool installation.

3. On-going processing by Council staff to check what non-structural or non-essential background information should be supplied before the final Compliance Certificate is issued and compliance bond - $1,000 in some areas – is refunded. Processing costs incurred during phase two of the processing will be invoiced for immediate payment once completed. If payment is not received, the outstanding sum will be deducted from the compliance bond. If the total processing costs exceed the $1,000 bond, the Compliance Certificate will be withheld and issued only on payment of final processing costs.

(Time: 2.0 to 3.0 hours by junior staff)

This system would allow the pool industry to get on with its business, and be a time and cost saving to Council staff who are currently overwhelmed with far more important issues than a backyard swimming pool.

The “minor works” nature of a home swimming pool – with its inherent healthy lifestyle for both adults and children – should not result in it being subjected to such scrutiny over minutiae that could be easily covered “after the event” and not hold up the issuing of the building approvals.

Councils simply screen the application for any major errors or contraventions of Town Planning, issue the approvals and let us get on with it. The balance of the processing could be completed after the pool is installed, and before the Compliance Certificate is issued.

This would offer a major financial relief to the swimming pool industry.

I ask you to consider this, in the hope that with a stroke of your pen - by issuing the appropriate Determination to Councils - you will ease the immense pressure we small New Zealand business people are experiencing.

Yours sincerely,

Laurence E (Larry) Ogden – Dip Pool Tech (Hon) President (2007 – 2009) Honorary Life Member The New Zealand Master Pool Builders Inc. E&OE

Sentiments and opinions stated in this correspondence are the author’s and may not necessarily reflect the opinion of the general membership.

THE NEW ZEALAND MASTER POOL BUILDERS INCORPORATED 5 PO Box 17069 Greenlane Auckland 1050 Address all correspondence to: Secretary Ron Dixon (021) 708 717