Building Consents Issued: February 2015
Embargoed until 10:45am – 31 March 2015

Key facts
In February 2015, building consents were issued for:
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1,758 new dwellings, including apartments
160 apartments, including 28 retirement village units
1,598 non-apartment dwellings.

The seasonally adjusted number of new dwellings consented decreased 6.3 percent in February.
Excluding apartments, this number fell 1.4 percent.
The trend for the number of new dwellings consented, including apartments, is showing signs of
decreasing.

The unadjusted value of building work consented in February 2015 was over $1.2 billion. For February
2015 compared with February 2014:
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residential work was up $43 million (5.9 percent) to $769 million
non-residential work was up $93 million (25 percent) to $469 million.

Liz MacPherson, Government Statistician
ISSN 1178-0231
31 March 2015

 Commentary
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New dwelling consents decreased in February
Number of consented dwellings down in 9 of the 16 regions
Non-residential consents valued at $469 million in February
Canterbury earthquake-related consents total almost $2.6 billion
Consents for all buildings total over $1.2 billion in February

Figures given are not adjusted for seasonal fluctuations unless otherwise stated. Values include
GST and are not adjusted for inflation.
We are changing what building consents statistics we publish. See Changes to our time series
and classifications in the Data quality section.

New dwelling consents decreased in February
In February 2015, 1,758 new dwellings were consented, comprising:
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160 apartments, including 28 retirement village units
1,598 non-apartment dwellings.

Including apartments, the seasonally adjusted number of new dwellings consented
decreased 6.3 percent, following a 4.6 percent decrease in January 2015.
Excluding apartments, the seasonally adjusted number of new dwellings consented
decreased 1.4 percent. This fall followed a 7.8 percent decrease in January 2015.
The trend for the number of new dwellings consented, including apartments, has more than
doubled since the series minimum in March 2011, but is now showing signs of decreasing.
Excluding apartments, the trend is up 80 percent from the low point in March 2011, but is now
decreasing.

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 Number of consented dwellings down in 9 of the 16 regions
Nine of the 16 regions consented fewer new dwellings, including apartments, in February 2015
than in February 2014.
The regions with the largest decreases were:
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Taranaki – down 21, to 25 (including 16 fewer apartments)
Otago – down 18, to 73 (including 12 fewer apartments)
Bay of Plenty – down 13, to 101
Canterbury – down 13, to 517 (including 52 more apartments).

Auckland region had the largest increase of new dwellings consented, up 64 to 528, including 70
more apartments. Apartment numbers usually fluctuate from month to month.

Non-residential consents valued at $469 million in February
The value of non-residential building work consented in February 2015 was $469 million, up $93
million (25 percent) compared with the same month in 2014. The regions that consented the
most non-residential building work in February 2015 were:
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Auckland – $182 million
Canterbury – $145 million (including $110 million in Christchurch city)
Manuwatu-Wanganui – $25 million (including $13 million in Palmerston North city).

The building types with the highest total consent values were:
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offices and administration buildings – $134 million
storage buildings – $67 million
education buildings – $48 million.

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 Canterbury earthquake-related consents total almost $2.6 billion
Since 4 September 2010, almost $2.6 billion of Canterbury's building consents have been
identified as earthquake-related. This includes consents for 3,048 new dwellings.
Not all earthquake-related consents can be identified. For comparison, total figures for
Canterbury from September 2010 to February 2015 were:
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$12 billion of building consents
21,356 new dwellings consented.

In February, the value of consents identified as earthquake-related in Canterbury was $49 million
(of a total of $344 million for Canterbury). This included:
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86 new dwellings (of a total of 517)
$43 million for residential building work (of $198 million)
$5 million for non-residential building work (of $145 million).

See more about earthquake-related building consents in Canterbury

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 Consents for all buildings total over $1.2 billion in February
The total value of building work consented in February 2015 was over $1.2 billion – comprising
$769 million of residential work, and $469 million of non-residential work.
For the year ended February 2015, compared with the year ended February 2014, the value of
building consents increased for:
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all buildings – up $2.3 billion (18 percent) to $14.8 billion
residential buildings – up $1.4 billion (17 percent) to $9.6 billion
non-residential buildings – up $0.9 billion (21 percent) to $5.3 billion.

Data for building consents is obtained from all territorial authorities in New Zealand.

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 For more detailed data, see the Excel tables in the 'Downloads' box.

Definitions
About Building Consents Issued
Building Consents Issued contains statistics on the number, value, and floor areas of residential
dwellings and the value and floor area of non-residential buildings, by region and building type.
Values include goods and services tax and are not inflation adjusted. We classify buildings
according to their main intended function. Subsequent changes in function will be recorded in the
statistics if new consents are issued.

More definitions
Apartments: are apartments, townhouses, or retirement village units, where at least 10
dwellings are covered under a single building consent. Where fewer than 10 dwellings are
covered under a consent, these are counted as non-apartment dwellings.
Domestic outbuildings: includes new construction, alterations, and additions to garages,
glasshouses, and sheds on residential sections.
Dwellings: are self-contained permanent residences. Examples include houses, apartments,
townhouses, granny flats, and licence to occupy retirement village units.
Note: Hostels, rest homes, and serviced apartments are not counted as dwellings.
Earthquake-related building consents in Canterbury: are building consents issued in the
Canterbury region and identified (primarily by the issuing authorities) as being earthquakerelated.
Not all earthquake-related consents can be identified. For example, if a new house (to replace a
damaged house) is built at a different site, the new house might not be identified as being
earthquake-related.
Note: Excludes seismic strengthening work and demolitions.
Non-residential buildings: includes new construction, alterations, and additions to industrial,
commercial, and other non-residential buildings such as schools, hospitals, and libraries.
Barracks, hostels, prisons, serviced apartments, workers' quarters, and other accommodation
buildings are included.
Residential buildings: includes new construction, alterations, and additions to dwellings
(houses, flats, and apartments) and domestic outbuildings.
Territorial authorities: are defined under the Local Government Act 2002 and related
amendments. There are 67 territorial authorities – 13 cities, 53 districts, and 1 territory.

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 Related links
Next releases
Building Consents Issued: March 2015 will be released on 30 April 2015.
Subscribe to information releases, including this one, by completing the online subscription form.
The release calendar lists all our upcoming information releases by date of release.

Past releases
Building Consents Issued has links to past releases.

Related information
Earthquake-related building consents in Canterbury summarises Canterbury consents identified
as earthquake-related. This table is updated monthly.
Value of building work put in place statistics estimate the actual dollar value of work put in place
on construction jobs within New Zealand (quarterly). It includes information by building type, and
deflated values.

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 Data quality
This section contains information that does not change between releases.
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Data source
Survey errors
Coverage
Interpreting the data
Changes to our time series and classifications
More information

Data source
We obtain data for building consents from all accredited building consent authorities (ie territorial
authorities) each month. We compile information from building consents issued each month if:
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they are valued at $5,000 or more
they are not predominantly for demolition work.

Survey errors
Sample errors
Because the survey has 100 percent coverage of the target population, there is no sample error.
Non-sample errors
These errors can occur when there is incomplete or incorrect information on consent forms, or
when information is incorrectly delivered, interpreted, or classified. While we make much effort to
minimise these errors, they will still occur, and we cannot quantify their effect.

Coverage
Scope
We only include construction work that requires a building consent in these statistics. Some civil
engineering works, such as roads, require resource consents but not building consents, so are
excluded.
The Building Act 2004 determines the scope of work requiring a building consent. Its main parts
came into force in 2005, replacing the Building Act 2001. The new Act introduced measures to
provide greater assurances to consumers, such as registration of building consent authorities,
and the licensing of building practitioners. The Act was reviewed in 2009. The review broadened
the scope of work that may proceed without a building consent (see Schedule 1 exemptions for
changes to the Building Act 2004, on the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's
website, effective from 23 December 2010).
The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority has legislative powers to undertake work without
a building consent. For example, demolition work and temporary repairs.

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 We exclude consents that are predominantly for demolition work, and consents valued below
$5,000.
Changes in coverage
The building consents included in this release have changed over time. The list below highlights
the key changes.
1996 From June 1996, we code consent values for multi-purpose buildings to one or more of the
most appropriate building types. Before this date, we classified multi-purpose buildings
separately.
1993 From January 1993, building authorisations have been applied for under the building
consents system administered by territorial authorities. Before this date, applications were made
under the building permits system. The building consents system has wider coverage than the
building permits system. The additional coverage includes some government building
(particularly work on education buildings), and on-site drainage and reticulation work.
1989 From September 1989, we exclude consents below $5,000.
Boundary changes
2011 From 1 November 2010, part of the former Franklin district moved from the Auckland
region to the Waikato region. We include this change in building consents data from January
2011.
2010 On 1 November 2010, the new Auckland Council came into being from seven former cities
and districts (see table 4). Before November 2010, the Auckland region (see table 3) can be
used to approximate the new Auckland Council.
Seasonally adjusted series
Seasonal adjustment removes the estimated effect of regular seasonal events, such as summer
holidays and pre-Christmas purchasing, from statistical series. This makes figures for adjacent
periods more comparable.
The seasonally adjusted series are re-estimated monthly when each new month’s data becomes
available. Figures are therefore subject to revision, with the largest changes normally occurring
in the latest months.
We use the X-13 ARIMA-SEATS seasonal adjustment program, developed at the U.S. Census
Bureau, to produce the seasonally adjusted and trend estimates.
Trend estimates
Trend estimation removes the estimated effect of regular seasonal events and irregular shortterm variation from statistical series. This reveals turning points and the underlying direction of
movement over time.
The trend series are re-estimated monthly when each new month’s data becomes available.
Figures are therefore subject to revision, with the largest changes normally occurring in the latest
months. Revisions can be large if values are initially treated as outliers but are later found to be
part of the underlying trend.

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 We use the X-13 ARIMA-SEATS seasonal adjustment program to produce the seasonally
adjusted and trend estimates. Irregular short-term variation is removed by smoothing the
seasonally adjusted series using optimal weighted moving averages.
To reduce distortions, we estimate the monthly trend series for the value of non-residential
buildings after removing consent values of $25 million or more between January 1990 and
December 2005, and of $50 million or more from January 2006. However, non-residential
building consent values are still volatile with no stable seasonal pattern, and therefore a stable
trend for this series is slow to emerge.
Seasonal adjustment in Statistics New Zealand has more information.

Interpreting the data
We compile figures for new apartments from consents that have 10 or more new attached
dwellings (flats or apartments). If there are fewer than 10 flats or apartments on a consent, we
treat them as being dwellings other than apartments. Apartment numbers often show large
fluctuations from month to month and, unless removed from dwelling figures, can mask
underlying movements.
Values for new buildings include conversion costs. For example, if a hotel is converted to
apartments, we treat them as new dwellings in the statistics. Consent values for new buildings
sometimes include the cost of demolishing or removing the previous buildings.
Some consents, particularly for large projects, are issued in stages across more than one month.
We collect value data at each stage but floor areas and dwelling or building counts are normally
recorded at the first large stage of the project. This difference in timing can affect calculations of
average prices.
Trading day adjustments
An aim of time series analysis is to identify movements that are due to actual changes. Seasonal
adjustment is done to remove systematic calendar-related variation. Specific adjustments can be
made to remove variations due to trading day differences, which are not accounted for in a
standard seasonal adjustment.
Some of the apparent movement in building consent figures is due to trading day differences
between months. For example, a month with four weekends has more trading or working days
than a comparable month with five weekends. This can affect monthly figures, even though there
may be no difference in the length of the month or difference in the rate at which consents are
issued.
We quantify and remove trading day effects when they are estimated to be statistically
significant. We don't remove the effect of moving holidays such as Easter.
Trend estimates versus month-on-month comparisons
Trend estimates reveal the underlying direction of movement in statistical series. In contrast,
comparisons of unadjusted data between one month and the same month in the previous year/s
do not take account of data recorded for the intervening months, and are subject to one-off
fluctuations. Reasons for fluctuations include changes in legislation, economic variables such as
interest rates, and trading day composition of months.

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 Changes to our time series and classifications
We are changing how we classify building consents. These changes are scheduled to be
included in our March 2015 building consents statistics, published on 30 April 2015.
The ‘non-apartment dwellings’ series will be replaced with a ‘houses’ series, which will be
seasonally adjusted.
The ‘apartments’ series will be split into series for ‘apartments’, ‘retirement village units’, and
‘townhouses, flats, units, and other dwellings’.
We are changing our definitions of apartments, townhouses, and retirement village units to
include consents with fewer than 10 units.
The ‘miscellaneous buildings’ series will be discontinued. Consents currently counted in this
series will be reclassified among the other series. We are not discontinuing any other published
building types.
Series for the seven former Auckland territorial authorities will be replaced with series for the 13
Auckland wards.

More information
See more information about Building Consents Issued
Statistics in this release have been produced in accordance with the Official Statistics System
principles and protocols for producers of Tier 1 statistics for quality. They conform to the
Statistics NZ Methodological Standard for Reporting of Data Quality.

Liability
While all care and diligence has been used in processing, analysing, and extracting data and
information in this publication, Statistics NZ gives no warranty it is error-free and will not be liable
for any loss or damage suffered by the use directly, or indirectly, of the information in this
publication.

Timing
Our information releases are delivered electronically by third parties. Delivery may be delayed by
circumstances outside our control. Statistics NZ accepts no responsibility for any such delay.

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Email: info@stats.govt.nz
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 Tables
The following tables are available in Excel format from the 'Downloads' box. If you have
problems viewing the files, see opening files and PDFs.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Building consents issued – February
Number of new dwellings consented
Number and value of new dwellings consented, by region
Number of new dwellings consented, by selected territorial authority area
Value of building consents issued, unadjusted and trend values

Access more data on Infoshare
Infoshare allows you to organise data in the way that best meets your needs. You can view the
resulting tables onscreen or download them.
Use Infoshare
For this release, select the following category from the Infoshare homepage:
Subject category: Industry sectors
Group: Building Consents - BLD

Next release
Building Consents Issued: March 2015 will be released on 30 April 2015.

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