Building Consents Issued: July 2015 Embargoed until 10:45am – 31 August 2015 Key facts In July 2015, building consents were issued for 2,824 new dwellings. Compared with July 2014:     houses were up 215 to 1,799 apartments were up 249 to 444 retirement village units were down 156 to 117 townhouses, flats, and units were up 234 to 464. The seasonally adjusted number of new dwellings consented increased 20 percent in July. The trend is increasing. The actual value of building work consented in July 2015 was $1.4 billion. For July 2015 compared with July 2014:   residential work was up $100 million (11 percent) to $976 million non-residential work was down $58 million (11 percent) to $455 million. Liz MacPherson, Government Statistician ISSN 1178-0231 31 August 2015 Commentary       New dwelling consents up in July National dwellings trend increasing Dwellings trend continues rising in Auckland Non-residential consents valued at $455 million in July Canterbury earthquake-related consents total $3.1 billion Consents for all buildings total $1.4 billion in July Figures given are not adjusted for seasonal fluctuations unless otherwise stated. Values include GST and are not adjusted for inflation. We have made changes to our building consents statistics. See the Definitions and Data quality sections for more information. New dwelling consents up in July In July 2015, building consents were issued for 2,824 new dwellings. Compared with July 2014:     houses were up 215 to 1,799 apartments were up 249 to 444 retirement village units were down 156 to 117 townhouses, flats, and units were up 234 to 464. The seasonally adjusted number of new dwellings consented was up 20 percent, following a 3.3 percent fall in June. For houses only, the seasonally adjusted number was up 12 percent, following a 0.1 percent fall in June. National dwellings trend increasing The trend for the number of new dwellings consented has been generally rising since the series minimum in April 2011. For houses only, the trend has more than recovered from recent falls, and the current level is double the series minimum in March 2009. 2 Dwellings trend continues rising in Auckland The trend for the number of new dwellings consented in Auckland rose 5.5 percent in July. This brings it to the highest level since November 2004. In July 2015, 13 of the 16 regions consented more new dwellings than in July 2014. 3 The regions with the largest increases were:     Auckland – up 267, to 1,116 Waikato – up 85, to 296 Bay of Plenty – up 56, to 181 Canterbury – up 41, to 650. Non-residential consents valued at $455 million in July The value of non-residential building work consented in July 2015 was $455 million, down $58 million (11 percent) compared with the same month in 2014. The regions that consented the most non-residential building work in July 2015 were:    Auckland – $161 million (35 percent of the national total) Canterbury – $150 million (33 percent) Waikato – $37 million (8 percent). The building types with the highest total consent values were:    office, administration, and public transport buildings – $122 million shops, restaurants, and bars – $108 million education buildings – $67 million. Canterbury earthquake-related consents total $3.1 billion Since September 2010, $3.1 billion of Canterbury's building consents have been identified as earthquake-related. This includes consents for 3,720 new dwellings. 4 Not all earthquake-related consents can be identified. For comparison, total figures for Canterbury from September 2010 to July 2015 were:   $13.9 billion of building consents 24,114 new dwellings consented. In July 2015, the value of consents identified as earthquake-related in Canterbury was $85 million (of a total of $398 million for Canterbury). This included 148 new dwellings (of a total of 650). See more about earthquake-related building consents in Canterbury. Consents for all buildings total $1.4 billion in July The total value of building work consented in July 2015 was $1.4 billion – comprising $976 million of residential work, and $455 million of non-residential work. For the year ended July 2015, compared with the July 2014 year, the value of building consents increased for:    all buildings – up $1.5 billion (11 percent) to $15 billion residential buildings – up $860 million (9.5 percent) to $9.9 billion non-residential buildings – up $626 million (13 percent) to $5.3 billion. 5 Data for building consents is obtained from all territorial authorities in New Zealand. For more detailed data, see the Excel tables in the 'Downloads' box. 6 Definitions About building consents issued Building consents issued contains statistics on consents for residential and non-residential buildings by region and building type. It includes the number, value, and floor area of new residential dwellings, and the value of consents for residential alterations and additions. It also includes the value of consents for non-residential buildings, and the floor area of new nonresidential buildings. 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. Territorial authorities issue building consents. More definitions Apartments: are dwellings identified as apartments on building consents, excluding those in retirement villages. Building nature: refers to the nature of the construction, and includes new buildings, altered, and new-plus-altered buildings.   Alterations and additions: includes building repairs, alterations, additions, extensions, strengthening, re-cladding, and relocation to another site. New buildings: are new constructions, and include conversions. For example, if a hotel is converted to apartments, the value of building work is classified to new dwellings. Dwellings: are self-contained permanent residences. Examples include houses, apartments, townhouses, granny flats, and licence-to-occupy retirement village units. Domestic outbuildings: examples include sleepouts (not fully self-contained), carports, garages, and garden sheds on residential sections. 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. Education buildings: examples include pre-schools, schools, polytechnics, and university buildings. Factories and industrial buildings: examples include sawmills, freezing works, workshops, and hangars. Farm buildings: examples include milking sheds, hay barns, implement sheds, and fattening units. Hospitals, nursing homes, and other health buildings: examples include retirement villages (excluding units), and medical laboratories. 7 Hostels, boarding houses, and prisons: examples include children's homes and workers’ quarters. Houses: are houses not attached to other houses. Non-building construction: is work that requires a building consent, but is not a building. For example, retaining walls, roads, bridges, signs, and wharves. Many civil engineering works require a resource consent but not a building consent, so are excluded. Non-residential buildings: includes new construction, alterations, and additions to commercial, industrial, and other non-residential buildings such as schools, hospitals, libraries, and farm buildings. Note: hostels, rest homes, and serviced apartments are classified as non-residential buildings. Office, administration, and public transport buildings: examples include police stations, postal centres, banks, and railway stations. Residential buildings: includes new construction, alterations, and additions to dwellings and domestic outbuildings. Retirement village units: are villas, townhouses, apartments, or other dwellings within a retirement village, including those owned through a license-to-occupy. Excludes care apartments. Shops, restaurants, and bars: examples include cafés, retail outlets, and service stations. Social, cultural, and religious buildings: examples include sports facilities, museums, libraries, cinemas, and funeral parlours. Storage buildings: examples include warehouses, cool stores, wharf sheds, and parking buildings. Territorial authorities: are defined under the Local Government Act 2002 and related amendments. There are 67 territorial authorities – Auckland Council, 12 city councils, 53 district councils, and Chatham Islands Council. Townhouses, flats, units, and other dwellings: examples include granny flats, and minor dwellings such as studios. 8 Related links Next release Building Consents Issued: August 2015 will be released on 30 September 2015. Subscribe to information releases, including this one, by completing the online subscription form. The release calendar lists all 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. 9 Data quality We have updated the information in this section as a result of changes to our time series and classifications.       Changes to our time series and classifications Data source Survey errors Coverage Interpreting the data More information Changes to our time series and classifications We made changes to the building consents statistics we publish, beginning with Building Consents Issued: March 2015, released on 30 April 2015. The following changes are intended to make the statistics more relevant and useful.       Updated three classifications: building type, institutional sector, and institutional control. Introduced four separate classifications for dwellings: 'houses', 'apartments', 'retirement village units', and 'townhouses, flats, units, and other dwellings'. Some building types have been reclassified within non-residential building categories. Miscellaneous buildings is discontinued. Added new dwelling trends for four regions and two aggregated regions. Made data much easier to find in new time-series families. Provided data for 13 Auckland wards, replacing seven former territorial authorities. Implemented an automated process to determine building type, nature, and new dwelling count where possible, with less need for human editing. In addition, changes to our seasonal adjustment methodology were applied in Building Consents Issued: April 2015, released on 29 May 2015. These changes affected the seasonally adjusted and trend total number of new dwellings consented. See Implementing classification and other changes to building consent statistics for more details. 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:   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. 10 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. 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. 2015 From March 2015 we use the 2014 building type classification. The main changes are:      dwellings now have four building types instead of two miscellaneous buildings series for non-residential buildings is discontinued institutional sector and control classifications are updated four new time-series families replace eight discontinued families series for the 13 wards in Auckland replace seven former territorial authorities series. 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 11 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. Before November 2010, the Auckland region 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. 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. 12 Interpreting the data 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. Care should be taken in using building consents data for individual building types at small geographic areas, as it may contain errors and omissions that are not significant at the national level. We may not have detected these errors during our editing processes. 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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Correction notifications: Subscribe to receive an email if a correction notice is published for Building Consents Issued. Unsubscribe to correction notifications for Building Consents Issued. Subscribe to all to receive an email if a correction notice is published for any of our information releases. Unsubscribe to all if you change your mind. 15 Tables See the following Excel tables in the 'Downloads' box on this page. If you have problems viewing the files, see opening files and PDFs. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Building consents issued – July Number of new dwellings consented Number and value of new dwellings consented, by region Number of new dwellings consented, trend for selected regions Number of new dwellings consented, by selected territorial authority and Auckland wards Value of building consents issued, actual and trend values Machine-readable zipped csv file A machine-readable zipped csv file is also available. This is a way for technical users to download our data. 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: August 2015 will be released on 30 September 2015. 16