Metro Sports contract boosts building consents

Long-delayed Metro Sports contract boosts non-residential building consents

By Jenny Ruth

May 30 (BusinessDesk) - The contentious $300 million Metro Sports centre in Christchurch and convention centres in Auckland and Christchurch are the main reasons for social building consents jumping 44 percent in the year ended April.

Stats NZ construction statistics manager Melissa McKenzie says social building consents were worth more than $1 billion in the past year.

The Metro Sports centre was supposed to have been completed by 2016 but the project was plagued by delays, including the sacking of the original contractor over a budget blowout. Australia-based CPB Contractors was finally appointed in March.

Total non-residential building consents rose 11 percent to $7.5 billion in the year ended April, while non-residential construction prices rose 4.6 percent in the year ended March.

“Work on malls in Auckland boosted shop consents while car park buildings and warehouses drove consents for storage buildings in the last year,” McKenzie says.

“In contrast, consents for office buildings fell 8.2 percent to below $1 billion, reflecting a fall in activity from the highs of the Christchurch rebuild.”

Housing consents fell a seasonally adjusted 7.9 percent in April after a similar fall in March, but McKenzie says the number of homes consented each month can vary significantly due to the timing of large projects such as apartment buildings.

The figures show consents for stand-alone houses fell 4.2 percent in the latest month.

However, in the year ended April, the actual number of new homes consented was 34,392, up 7.4 percent on the previous year and with 13,754 of them in Auckland.

(BusinessDesk)

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