Here is a small example of why building costs keep rising.

We’re putting in a new crossing for a single home MacFarlane Street in Hamilton East.  It’s a nice quiet residential street.  There is very little vehicle or pedestrian traffic.

Despite the street being quiet, the asphalt contractor has to submit traffic management plans and shoulder closure plans to the council, so we are being charged:

Traffic management plan $287.50. Shoulder closure $345.00 – per day. So that’s at least $632.50 for paperwork to close a footpath for whats usually less than a day.  Just a few years ago we would put some cones on the footpath, now we have to spend $632.50, for nothing.

Who pays for this?  The home buyer of course.  We pass the costs on….  And building costs just keep going up.

Every development we have started for the past 14 years has been like this – more red tape, more pointless costs.

I’m sorry if I sound negative, but I’ve been doing this a long time and I see how much harder it is getting for first home buyers and yet all I see the central and local government doing is bringing in more and more stupid rules that drive the costs up higher and higher…  Where will it end?

John Kenel, Assured