Jalcon Homes lodges first paper-free online building consent

Jalcon Homes lodges first paper-free online building consent application to Auckland Council
-Quicker, greener, more efficient process heralds in new era for home building-

There will be 60 fewer car trips made this year and much less paper flying around the city, as one of Auckland’s leading residential home builders has just lodged Auckland Council’s very first online consent application, heralding in a new era for building consent.

Jalcon Homes is the first to use Council’s new online portal, which involves an instant lodgement of the consent application and no courier drivers.

Design Manager for Jalcon Homes, Cameron Baker, says of the new consent process, “Gone are the days where we’d have 60 car trips a year to lodge consent applications. The new online platform involves minimal - if any - paperwork, as well as quicker processing, and a more streamlined function for questions and responses.”

Baker says the application is now fully tracked through the whole process which means lost or misplaced applications could be a thing of the past, “The online portal means the entire consent process is quicker, greener and more efficient. There’s no paper involved until physical building has started and there has to be a paper consent form on site. This new process is a much better fit for purpose.

“In the past, you’d lodge two copies of all relevant documents, each being up to 2000 odd pages in length. Council would courier them to a scanning company who scanned the documents and then couriered them back to Council for processing. The process wasn’t as efficient as it could be, so we are proud to be working in collaboration with Council to create a smart new way of lodging building consents.”

Jalcon has been consulted throughout the development of the portal and has provided feedback which is then utilised to improve the system before it is launched to the wider building and construction market at a later stage.
Auckland Council’s General Manager Building Control, Ian McCormick, says Jalcon Homes’ feedback is very positive.

“This is the first week that our online portal has been available and we are very pleased with the feedback we are receiving so far. It is early days and we are sure the wider Group Housing Sector market will be welcoming this new tool as businesses start applying for their building consents online. Initially this on-line service will only be available for Group Home Builders due to system constraints.”

“Making the process easier for our customers is very important and we are looking forward to seeing the benefits that this will bring to those in the industry and our teams processing building consents at the council.”
Jalcon Homes is one of only a few selected building companies to be involved in the testing and implementation of the online portal, a Council decision Baker says was based on the quality of Jalcon’s plans and documents, and the business’s recent and previous involvement in working with Council to assist with the building consent process.

ENDS

Jalcon Homes Limited
In 1993 Lindsay Aitken established Jalcon Homes, aiming to build a 100% family-owned company that created beautifully designed architecturally sound homes to accommodate modern living for New Zealand families.
Now based at Laidlaw Business Park on Ormiston Road, East Tamaki, Jalcon Homes is today one of Auckland’s leading residential home builders turning over $120 million-$130 million in 2014, and growing: the benchmark for solid, great looking, weather-tight homes.
Over the past 20 years, more than 1,200 families have trusted Jalcon Homes with the construction of their most valuable asset. And, in 2005, at the height of the leaky homes crisis, Jalcon Homes stepped up with a unique 15 Year Weather Tight Warranty to give homeowners peace of mind.

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