Summary of Submissions published following public consultation on Granny Flats

For eight weeks between June and August, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and the Ministry for the Environment (MfE) undertook public consultation on options to enable granny flats which meet certain criteria to be built without requiring a building or resource consent.

Almost 2,000 submissions were received for this consultation, showing a strong public interest in these proposals. There was particular interest from homeowners and those working in the building industry – with these groups representing around a third of the responses.

Overall, submitters agreed with the reasons why these changes have been proposed and the potential solutions for enabling granny flats which meet the criteria to be built without requiring building or resource consents.

While submitters generally supported the intent to make it easier to build granny flats, they indicated that changes should lower the risk of building failure, improve consumer protections, fairly assign liability and avoid environmental risks, for example from natural hazards.

Making it easier to build granny flats summary of submissions

Read Ministers Penk and Bishop’s announcement on the Beehive website.

Record number of submissions received on granny flat proposal(external link) — Beehive.govt.nz

Read the estimated policy impact report on the Ministry for the Environment website.

Minor residential unit uptake analysis: Report on estimated policy impact(external link) — Ministry for the Environment

Find more information about the granny flats work programme on the Building Performance website.

Granny flats(external link) — Building Performance