Appendix A: background, methodology and next steps
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Background
The Government has committed to ‘amend the Building Act and the resource consent system to make it easier to build granny flats or other small structures up to 60 square metres, requiring only an engineer's report’.
The discussion document, Making it easier to build granny flats, presents options for achieving the Government’s commitment, through potential changes to the Building Act and the Resource Management Act.
Making it easier to build granny flats: Discussion document [PDF 779KB]
Public consultation
Officials reached out to the public through a variety of mediums. An announcement of the consultation was placed into various newsletters, such as the Business.govt.nz Newsletter, social media posts were made on LinkedIn and Facebook, and an email was sent out directly to over 37,000 addresses. New campaign pages were also created for the websites for both MBIE and MfE.
In addition to public consultation on the discussion document, officials also met with key stakeholders directly to discuss their feedback.
The submitter type spread graph on page four provides a greater breakdown of the percentages stated in relation to the submissions received and the types of submitters that responded, from all 1,970 submissions. We refer to the limitations section below and note that, in the quantitative analysis, certain groups, such as homeowners, comprised a bigger percentage than is the case for overall submissions. In addition, the graphs for each question with a quantitative analysis (figures 2 – 17) only relate to a more limited data spread comprising 74% of all submissions received.
Submissions analysis
Responses
A total of 1,970 submissions were received, including:
- 1,299 submissions that used the SurveyMonkey online questionnaire
- 219 form submissions (where a participant completed a manual questionnaire form and submitted it)
- 452 unique email submissions.
Not all submitters answered all the questions posed in the discussion document. Summaries for each question has the number of responses received and the number of submitters who provided additional comments.
Methodology
MfE and MBIE (the Ministries) used four different software platforms to collate, process and analyse feedback on the submissions: SurveyMonkey, Croissant, Microsoft Power BI and Microsoft Excel.
The Ministries collated the submissions received through SurveyMonkey and the consultation email inbox and uploaded these into Croissant. These submissions were grouped into themes by selecting relevant text and connecting it to specific ideas, categories and common responses. The Ministries reviewed the submissions to check for duplicates and blank submissions.
The organised data from Croissant was then analysed through Microsoft Power BI to show overall trends, key themes and common topics across all submissions. The full text of each individual submission was available to officials while summary analysis was being undertaken.
The following outlines the quantitative and qualitative methods used to analyse the submissions.
Quantitative analysis
- The Ministries collated all submission responses to 'yes or no' survey questions into a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet and used this information to create the graphs throughout the document.
- Microsoft Power BI was used to see how many submitters from different demographic groups responded to each survey question and what key issues or common themes were raised. This software was also used to analyse what key themes or issues were raised by submitters that did not respond to the survey questions.
Qualitative analysis
- Each submission was tagged in Croissant to common themes and issues.
- The tagged text from each survey question and/or relevant tag was then extracted and reviewed again in Microsoft Power BI to group these key themes and issues, which informed much of our analysis in this summary.
- There were a range of submitter demographics, so these were grouped in our analysis to:
- homeowners
- councils
- iwi, hapū and Māori
- industry (this includes but is not limited to builders, planners, designer/architects, developers, engineers, businesses, advocacy groups, professional organisations).
- In the survey there was no option to identify as ‘individual’ and some submitters noted that this was restrictive.
Limitations
Some submissions did not directly address the questions in the consultation document or the questions on the SurveyMonkey online platform, which created challenges for analysis.
For the set ‘tick box’ questions, only submissions from SurveyMonkey and the majority of form submissions were analysed.
The additional email submissions did not follow the format of the questions and therefore accurate quantitative analysis could not be done for this group of submissions. However, all submissions, including the additional email submissions, were uploaded onto a software platform to assist in analysis for themes and recurring issues. This formed a large part of the analysis within this document.
The quantitative analysis utilised the 1,299 submissions from SurveyMonkey and 151 form submissions, comprising 74% of all submissions received. The major submitter groups in this portion were homeowners (45%), builders (14%) and designers/architects (13%).
Due to the consultation process allowing three different submission types, the quantitative analysis has limitations. However, as the purpose of the consultation was to seek ideas and feedback on the two proposals presented, a fully quantitative-based analysis was not crucial for the success of the consultation process. Officials read and considered all submissions, which will be used to inform policy recommendations.
Next steps
Feedback received from the consultation will help inform analysis and further policy development as we shape and refine the proposals and options and prepare further advice to Ministers.
As noted, a range of views were expressed in the feedback. While further advice to the Government on the proposals cannot encompass all feedback received, we will aim to incorporate all relevant and practical concerns.