Our challenge was to utilize digital twin technology to dramatically improve the Council Building Consent process:

Remove some of the friction slowing down the development of new stocks of desired affordable housing.

Reduce frustration, wasted time, and cost, improving the productivity of the consent process for both ratepayers and Council.

Practically accelerate the digitization of local government.

Record and identify previously unseen behaviors within localized New Zealand communities, informing policy to create the ecosystem to achieve BBHTC goals.

Proof of Concept for Building Better Homes Towns and Cities, in collaboration with BRANZ and with assistance from PNCC and MDC planners

Our focus groups with Palmerston North City Council (PNCC) and Manawatu District Councils (MDC), aimed to confirm the benefits could be achieved without burdening Council resource or requiring Council or national systems change.

Benefits of amalgamating the visualisation of application plans, codified DP rules and urban design characteristics, and related consents were identified as:

better understanding of the District Plans and their intent.

better informed public and Iwi.

reduce the requests for further information from applicants.

the ability to identify potential District Plan (DP) breaches more rapidly.

better communication of issue breaches and their extent.

reduced strain on consenting officers resulting in greatly improved quality and throughput of consenting applications.

improved subjective and informed engagement with Councils.

more for applicants to consider alternative options.

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Implementation benefits of Bruce as the platform for this portal included:

the ability to implement and improve in stages.

cloud delivery means internal IT capabilities and capacities are essentially a non-issue implementation and deployment is made easy across all participating councils with minimal or no infrastructure improvement within existing Councils required.

integrated with existing 2D document consenting systems — no duplication of developments or technology or data.

digitization of Councils, improving data collection and understanding of both private and public infrastructure and utilities.

positioning NZ as a global leader in the area of building consent management.