If you speak to Andrew Eagles at length, you’d come away thinking it must be a very tough gig to lead an association that with the support of almost an entire built environment industry, wants better, cleaner, greener buildings and cities, when the government of the day says, nope. No dice. “Let the market rip, we don’t want no regulations”.
Despite this Eagles, chief executive of the New Zealand Green Building Council was a great interview on Monday for our new podcast. He was hopeful, calm, logical, maybe quietly thinking, “this too shall pass”.
While we at TFE Central on the other hand keep turning to our huge whiteboard to clock up the falling ten pins of sustainability progress, globally. It’s like a nasty ideological virus that’s taken over the job from Covid, as if we missed the drama!
Did we mention (yes, we did, we did) that even that conservative media mag The Economist ran a cover in recent weeks on the Revolt against Regulations. Shredded red tape, bleeding profusely. (What we would give for that kind of art department, in a world where instant impressions are top dog. Not logic, not rational economic value and long term thinking but empty emotional catch phrases.)
In fact in the conversation with Eagles it was clear this anti regulation pro-rubbish movement is exactly about impressions and no substance.
Eagles told us of the new crisis in that country’s housing industry.
Yes, there’s a supply issue especially now that the conservative national government has dramatically pulled back on building social housing for the 30,000 or so people currently living in motels, cars and garages.
But adding salt to the wound is that those lucky enough to have a new house, are sweltering in 50 degree temperatures in the day and 30 degrees at night.
Eagles says residents say, “It’s like a sauna, but without the fun. Or an oven, and they just can’t sleep at night.”
The housing has been built to the NZ code but a version that was more concerned about cold and damp, than overheating.
The problem is that the marketing hype skews towards big windows and cheaper building costs so there’s a lack of shading, small bedroom and little by way of cross-ventilation. In a heating climate that’s dangerous.
“And there’s nothing in our building code that requires control for that,” Eagles tells us.
But despite an almighty coalition of the NZGBC, the New Zealand Institute of Architects, the Architectural Designers New Zealand, New Zealand Construction Industry Council, Building Research Association of New Zealand, “eco designers and a whole raft of others” advocating for a move to some form of mandatory modelling so that prospective owners and occupants know what to expect it’s no dice from the government.
The relevant minister has given direction that he “doesn’t want anything that will increase cost”.
“But here’s the rub”, says Eagles.
“We’re literally talking about one to four hours worth of additional analysis by a designer, so let’s say that $250 an hour, that maybe that’s an extra $1000 maybe $2000 on the price of a home, right?”
But people are saying that they are quoted $25,000 to fix the problem. Another says they would put external shading on, but that the body corporate won’t allow it. “They’re stuck in a house their child can’t sleep in it. So for the sake of…$2000 on the price of a home, we could ensure that our homes are healthy and warm for Kiwis, and vastly lower running bills, because everyone’s going to put air conditioning in.”
The government also tried to recently roll back regulation on insulation. But this time the mighty coalition assembled by the GBC forced a backdown.
Governments do that when they can see the cards stacked against them.
Let’s try to remember that in coming days.
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