Wellington Law Production factory.

I’ve heard from several councillors that most of the delays and difficulties associated with rules, regulations, fees and slow responses are because of Government requirements for councils to meet all sorts of daft laws and requirements coming out of the Wellington Law Production factory.

When will the council stand up to the government and either tell them to get knotted or simply ignore them in the same way that the council regularly ignores us, the ratepayers (and increasingly the development contribution payers)?

Anyone bothering to visit www.dbh.govt.nz, the website for the Department of Building and Housing will find volumes of idiotic regulations devoted to stopping us falling over on verandahs or thrusting our way through endless versions of balustrades and guardrails. What is this fixation? Are civil servants and politicians really that clumsy that they need this amount of protection from themselves. We don’t.

Someone, somewhere has to lead a stop to this madness before they fence off the beaches and wharves of Northland in case someone gets in the water and drowns.
Same with pool fences. Get around to inspecting them in a few years time would be a suitable response and in the meantime make it mandatory that all kids learn to swim. That way it won’t matter if they fall in and in fact they’ll all love the fun and benefit from the physical activity.

Apply for a building permit and you will get letters back, (not emails, mate) covering an amazing array of things that don’t matter, including for instance the demand that the plans show the method of extracting cooking fumes. Presumably this is because someone thinks that the hospitals are full of people suffering from inhaling the aroma of bacon and eggs.

Anywhere on the coast now counts as an area for which wind turbulence is so great that specific engineering design is required. This is in spite of the fact that simple old Kiwi baches still survive in droves in the same wind patterns. We have allowed ourselves to be treated as a bunch of complete nannas!

The house I live in will be 100 years old this summer and is as solid as a rock in spite of the fact that it is over the sea and would absolutely fail nearly every clause of the current building code. Nor does it have any subfloor insulation, yet it is warm and cheery through winter and cool and airy in summer. It is just wonderful to live in and will be for another 100 years. Let it go, council!