Since January 2026, a stand-alone home of up to 70 m² no longer needs building consent anywhere in New Zealand, provided licensed professionals design and build it. The Building Code still applies in full, the council is notified through the exemption paperwork rather than a consent application, and your district plan keeps setting the ground rules for where and how it sits on the section. Below: what each council's plan actually checks, in plain English, covering the zones, overlays, ground and weather that shape a 70 m² build in every district in the country.
The free site check reads your council's layers for your exact section: zones, overlays, services, wind.