Skip to content.
Return to Department of Building and Housing home page.

Canterbury recovery programme

This issue is a little late off the press due to the Department's desire to let you know about the work ahead in Christchurch and outer-lying areas as the focus moves from the assessment of homes and buildings to repairing and rebuilding them.

Our thoughts are with all Cantabrians in the months ahead. If the spirit of the people of Christchurch we've witnessed recently is anything to go by, then the rebuild will be one of solidarity too.

Much of the Department's effort is shifting from on the ground efforts to working with others to plan and contribute to the recovery programme.

Emergency legislation has been passed which allows Ministers to speed up the recovery process including:

  • expanding the scope of building work able to be done without a consent, enabling simple repairs to be undertaken immediately
  • increasing powers of entry into affected buildings enabling us to learn moreabout building structure and stability under earthquake conditions
  • streamlining the dangerous building provisions in the Building Act 2004.

The Department is working closely with affected councils and agencies on all of the above. Other work in the pipeline includes further streamlining for Canterbury Licensed Building Practitioners to support the recovery effort without compromising quality.