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Building Act 2004

Building - Building work—Project information memoranda and building consents - Limitations and restrictions on building consents: Construction of building on land subject to natural hazards

72: Building consent for building on land subject to natural hazards must be granted in certain cases

You could also call this:

“Even if land might be dangerous, you can still get permission to build if it's safe and reasonable.”

If you want to build on land that might have natural hazards, you can still get permission in some cases. Even if the land has risks, the building authority (which is part of your local council) must give you permission to build if they think three things are true:

Your building work won’t make any natural hazards worse on your land or nearby properties.
The land you want to build on has natural hazards or is likely to have them.
It’s okay to change or ignore some of the normal building rules because of the natural hazard.

A natural hazard is something in nature that could be dangerous, like flooding or earthquakes. The building authority will look at your plans and decide if it’s safe for you to build, even with these risks.

This text is automatically generated. It might be out of date or be missing some parts. Find out more about how we do this.

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM306819.

Topics:

Housing and property > Home safety and repairs

Housing and property > Land use

Environment and resources > Town planning

71: Building on land subject to natural hazards, or

“Rules about building on land that might be unsafe because of things like floods or landslides”

73: Conditions on building consents granted under section 72, or

“Rules for telling people about special building permissions on risky land”

Part 2 Building
Building work—Project information memoranda and building consents: Limitations and restrictions on building consents: Construction of building on land subject to natural hazards

72Building consent for building on land subject to natural hazards must be granted in certain cases

Despite section 71, a building consent authority that is a territorial authority must grant a building consent if the building consent authority considers that—
the building work to which an application for a building consent relates will not accelerate, worsen, or result in a natural hazard on the land on which the building work is to be carried out or any other property; and
the land is subject or is likely to be subject to 1 or more natural hazards; and
it is reasonable to grant a waiver or modification of the building code in respect of the natural hazard concerned.

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Notes

Section 72: amended, on 15 March 2008, by section 13 of the Building Amendment Act 2008 (2008 No 4).