Steady demand for building consents

BUILDING consents issued by the Manawatu District Council during the past four months may have slowed slightly, but the 2007/08 financial year is still likely to be one of the highest in value terms on record.

Principal Building Officer, Chris Henry, believes the year’s final tally, with three months still to run, will threaten the record-breaking $82.4 million from 1243 consents established in 2006/07. In the first nine months of the current year, 768 consents totalling $63.7 million have been issued.

Even though the value of consents are down nearly $4 million over the last four months, when compared to the corresponding period the previous year, signs of another upswing are evident.

Mr Henry said the Manawatu District did not experience the peaks and troughs of bigger centres and normally remained pretty constant, or on a slight upward curve, throughout each year.

“We’ve had no big inputs or dropouts and have been quite steady, so far, for the year. The district and Palmerston North are always quite steady and often go against the trends in the rest of New Zealand.”

He said January and February this year had quietened down, but there were signs of “things starting to pick up and getting back to where we should be”.

Consent requests for houses and farm-type buildings were most in demand and a rise in commercial activity was expected shortly. The biggest consent granted this year had been for a church.

“We’ve also had lots of little jobs regarding alterations and additions, which can be more time-consuming than for a new house. You have to go into the detail with the owners and make sure the consent matches up with the existing house and that all the calculations are correct.”

Mr Henry said the district was still viewed as an attractive location and he hoped people would feel that it was still a good time to build.

Annual consents issued

Year Number Value

1998/1999 935 23,711,360

1999/2000 1074 25,429,011

2000/2001 1012 30,049,133

2001/2002 1115 31,338,317

2002/2003 1122 31,662,852

2003/2004 1275 41,177,699

2004/2005 1301 51,000,206

2005/2006 1280 68,050,016

2006/2007 1243 82,414,806

2007/2008

(July-March) 768 63,714,212