Quick answer
The 70m² granny-flat exemption lets you build without a building consent or resource consent, but it does not let you skip the kitchen rules. Because the dwelling has to be self-contained, it is classified as Housing – detached dwelling under clause A1 of the Building Code, and that classification pulls in the full Building Code — including clause G3, which requires facilities for cooking, refrigeration, utensil washing and a food-preparation surface. No compliant kitchen, no exemption. You still get a Project Information Memorandum from council before you start, a Licensed Building Practitioner still carries out or supervises the restricted building work, and you still hand council Records of Work and certificates on completion. The consent went away; the Code, and the kitchen it demands, did not.
Key points
- The exemption that started on 15 January 2026 removes the building and resource consent for a detached dwelling up to 70m², but the Building Code still applies in full.
- Self-contained means the granny flat is classified Housing – detached dwelling under clause A1, which is the trigger that makes clause G3 and the rest of the Code apply.
- Clause G3 requires the kitchen to provide for cooking, refrigeration, utensil washing and a surface for preparing food — a bare bench with a microwave is not a compliant kitchen.
- You still need a Project Information Memorandum on Form 2AA before you start, and Records of Work plus certificates of compliance notified to council when you finish.
- A mezzanine disqualifies the whole exemption, development contributions still apply, and the building must sit at least 2m from the main dwelling and every boundary.
The consent went away. The Code, and the kitchen it demands, did not.
Picture a back section in Papatoetoe, a decent lawn behind the main house, and an owner who has just read that they can put a 70m² granny flat on it without a building consent. The plan on the kitchen table is a one-bedroom flat for the mother-in-law now and a rental later. The owner's first instinct, understandable and completely wrong, is that no consent means a stripped-back kitchen — a sink, a bar fridge, a plug for a bench oven, sorted. That is the exact assumption the exemption punishes. The consent is gone, but the reason the flat is exempt in the first place is that it is a proper, self-contained dwelling, and a proper dwelling has to have a proper kitchen under the Building Code.
So this piece stays on the kitchen. It is about what clause G3 of the Building Code actually asks for, why the self-contained requirement is the thing that switches the whole Code on, and how the paperwork path — PIM before, Records of Work and certificates after — wraps around the kitchen you install. It is written for Auckland homeowners building a minor dwelling under the exemption that started on 15 January 2026, and it leans on the guidance published at building.govt.nz. None of it replaces a conversation with your council and your Licensed Building Practitioner before you order anything. The exemption is read case by case, and the LBP who signs the Record of Work is the one carrying the risk.
Self-contained is the word that switches on the whole Code
The exemption only applies to a dwelling that is self-contained — it has to stand on its own, with its own kitchen, bathroom and living space, capable of housing a single household without leaning on the main house for anything. That is not a throwaway description. Under clause A1 of the Building Code, every building has a classified use, and a self-contained standalone home lands squarely in Housing – detached dwelling. Once a building carries that classification, the parts of the Building Code that apply to Housing apply to it, in full, exactly as they would to a consented house. The exemption changes who checks the work and when — it does not carve out a lighter version of the Code for small buildings.
This is the mental model to hold. A sleepout with no cooking facilities is a different animal, and the line between a minor dwelling and a sleepout is worth understanding before you start. The moment your building is meant to be lived in as a home, it needs the kitchen that a home needs, and that need comes from G3. You cannot claim the granny-flat exemption and then argue the kitchen should be judged as something less than a house kitchen. The two positions contradict each other. Self-contained is the whole basis of the exemption, and a compliant kitchen is part of what self-contained means.
What clause G3 actually requires
Clause G3 of the Building Code is titled Food preparation and prevention of contamination, and for a house its job is to make sure the dwelling has safe, adequate space and facilities to store, prepare and cook food hygienically. Strip it back and the functional requirement lands on four things the kitchen has to provide for: cooking, refrigeration, utensil washing, and a surface for preparing food. That is the compliance floor. It is not a design brief and it is not generous, but it is real, and a kitchen that misses any one of those four is not a compliant kitchen — which, in an exempt granny flat, means the dwelling does not meet the Code, which means it was never eligible for the exemption.
| What G3 requires | What that means on the ground | Bare minimum vs sensible |
|---|---|---|
| Space and facility for cooking | A fixed provision to cook food — typically a cooktop and oven, or a compliant cooking appliance | A single portable benchtop plate is thin; a fixed cooktop reads as a real kitchen |
| Space for refrigeration | Room and services to accommodate a fridge | Leave a proper fridge cavity, not just a gap for a bar fridge |
| Facility for utensil washing | A sink with hot and cold water, connected and draining properly | One bowl is enough; a decent bowl beats a tiny one you fight with |
| A surface for preparing food | Bench space adjacent to the cooking and washing zones | Compliance is modest; a workable run of bench is what makes it liveable |
| Hygienic, cleanable surfaces | Splashback and bench materials that clean down and resist damage | Melteca or laminate does this cheaply; the point is it wipes clean |
Notice what G3 does not do. It does not set a dollar figure, it does not demand stone, and it does not require a scullery, a dishwasher or a double bowl. A well-built melteca kitchen sized for a 70m² footprint meets G3 comfortably — the compliance question and the specification question are separate, and it pays to keep them apart. You meet the Code with a modest, hygienic, functional kitchen. You then decide, on top of that, how far up the material and appliance ladder you want to go, and that decision is driven by whether the flat is for family, for long-term rental, or to protect a resale price. Compliance is the floor, not the ceiling.
The paperwork the exemption keeps
The exemption removes consents, not accountability, and the kitchen sits inside a documented process from start to finish. Before you break ground you apply to council for a Project Information Memorandum — the Form 2AA route for this exemption — which is where the council flags things like development contributions, any site-specific hazards, and information you need before building. You do not get a building consent, but the PIM is a mandatory front gate, and skipping it is not an option. It is worth understanding how the PIM and the completion notification bracket the kitchen work so the sequence is clear before the cabinets are ordered.
During the build, an LBP must carry out or supervise the restricted building work, and registered plumbers and drainlayers handle the plumbing and drainage that feeds and drains your kitchen sink. On completion you notify council with the final plans, the Records of Work from the LBPs, and the certificates of compliance from the plumbing and electrical trades. That completion pack is the evidence the dwelling meets the Code, and it is what a future buyer's lawyer, or a property manager doing due diligence, will expect to see. A granny flat with no completion paperwork is a granny flat with a question mark over it. The way the LBP Records of Work attach to the kitchen install is worth getting straight with whoever is building, because the joinery, the plumbing and the electrical all have to line up on that final notification.
PIM before, kitchen built to the Code, Records of Work after.
The kitchen decisions the 70m² footprint forces
Seventy square metres for a whole dwelling is not much once you take out a bedroom, a bathroom and a living area, so the kitchen has to earn every millimetre. In practice that means a compact galley or a short L, a single bowl rather than a double, and honest choices about appliances. A full-width oven and a dishwasher are lovely, but each one eats a cabinet you might need for storage, and there is a real argument for a smaller cooking appliance and clever storage instead when the flat is tight. G3 does not force a dishwasher on you, so in a small granny flat it is a want, not a need — decide it on merit, not habit.
Ventilation is the other quiet compliance point that lives near the kitchen. The Building Code wants cooking moisture and smells dealt with, and if you are going to rent the flat out, the Healthy Homes Standards add their own ventilation and extraction expectations on top. A recirculating rangehood is cheap and easy, but it is not always enough on its own, and a ducted rangehood that vents outside is the safer call in a small, well-sealed flat — the ducted versus recirculating trade-off matters more in 70m² than it does in a big open-plan house, because there is nowhere for the moisture to go. If the flat will be a rental, read how Healthy Homes shapes the kitchen in a let granny flat before you finalise the extraction.
Benchtops: what is actually allowed
There is a lot of confused chatter about benchtop materials, so be clear on the fact. Engineered stone is legal to buy, fabricate and install in New Zealand. Australia banned it in 2024; New Zealand did not follow. What exists here is a workplace health-and-safety duty on the fabricator to control respirable silica dust when the stone is cut, under the Health and Safety at Work Act, not a ban on the product and not a consent issue for your granny flat. So a stone benchtop in a minor dwelling is a matter of budget and taste, not legality. If you want the full picture, we set it out in whether engineered stone is banned in New Zealand, and the short version is: it is not, but the position could change if regulators act, so check current guidance.
For most granny flats, though, laminate or melteca is the sensible benchtop, and it satisfies G3's cleanable-surface intent perfectly well. Putting a premium waterfall stone benchtop into a small rental flat is money you are unlikely to see again at the rent review, whereas in a flat you are building to keep a parent close, or to add resale value to the main property, the step up can be worth it. The Code is agnostic. It wants a hygienic, cleanable, durable surface; whether that is laminate or stone is your call and your wallet's.
People hear no consent and think no rules, then get a shock when the flat has to be a real house with a real kitchen. The Code never left. It just stopped being checked by a consent, so now it lands on the LBP and on you.
What goes wrong
The failures are predictable and they cluster around the same misunderstanding — that exempt means unregulated. The first is the token kitchenette: an owner installs a sink and a microwave shelf, no fixed cooking, and only later learns the dwelling fails G3 and therefore never qualified for the exemption. The second is the missing PIM: someone starts building on the strength of the headline and skips the Form 2AA step, then finds council will not accept the completion notification for a build that never had a PIM. The third is treating the plumbing and electrical as DIY because there is no consent — those trades are still restricted, still need to be done by licensed people, and still have to hand you certificates for the completion pack.
The fourth is the mezzanine that seemed like a clever way to add storage and quietly voided the entire exemption. The fifth is forgetting the money that does not disappear: development contributions still apply to a granny flat, and the setback rules still bite — the building has to sit at least 2m from the main dwelling and from every boundary, which on a tight urban section can shrink the buildable footprint enough to change the kitchen layout entirely. We go deeper on the development contributions that survive the exemption and on everything the exemption pointedly does not cover, because the gap between the headline and the reality is where budgets blow out. None of these are exotic. They are the ordinary cost of reading the headline and stopping there.
- Confirm the kitchen provides for all four G3 functions — cooking, refrigeration, utensil washing and food prep — before you shrink it to fit the footprint.
- Apply for the PIM on Form 2AA before you start, and check what development contributions the council flags at that point.
- Confirm an LBP will carry out or supervise the restricted building work and issue a Record of Work, and that plumbing and electrical are done by licensed trades.
- Check the setbacks — at least 2m from the main dwelling and every boundary — because they can force a smaller kitchen than you planned.
- Rule out any mezzanine or loft; it disqualifies the exemption and pushes you back into a full building consent.
- If the flat will be rented, plan the kitchen ventilation and extraction to the Healthy Homes Standards, not just to G3.
- Keep the completion pack — final plans, Records of Work and certificates of compliance — filed with the property papers permanently.
Frequently asked questions
Does a 70m² granny flat legally need a full kitchen, or can I install a kitchenette?
It needs a kitchen that meets clause G3 of the Building Code, which requires facilities for cooking, refrigeration, utensil washing and a food-preparation surface. A kitchenette that provides all four functions is fine; one that skips fixed cooking is not. Because the dwelling has to be self-contained to qualify for the exemption, a kitchen that fails G3 means the whole dwelling fails to meet the Code, and a dwelling that fails the Code was never eligible for the exemption.
Why does the Building Code apply if I do not need a building consent?
The exemption removes the consent, not the Code. Because the granny flat is self-contained, it is classified as Housing – detached dwelling under clause A1 of the Building Code, and that classification means the full Building Code applies exactly as it would to any consented house. The difference is that instead of a council consent officer checking compliance, the responsibility sits with the Licensed Building Practitioner who carries out or supervises the work and signs the Record of Work.
Do I still need a licensed builder and plumber for the granny-flat kitchen?
Yes. The restricted building work must be carried out or supervised by a Licensed Building Practitioner, and the plumbing and drainage that serve the kitchen sink must be done by registered plumbers and drainlayers. These licensing requirements are separate from the consent regime and do not go away under the exemption. On completion you provide council with the Records of Work and certificates of compliance from those trades as part of the notification.
Can I put a stone benchtop in a granny-flat kitchen, or is engineered stone banned in New Zealand?
Engineered stone is not banned in New Zealand — Australia banned it in 2024, but New Zealand did not follow. It is legal to buy, fabricate and install here. The regulation that exists is a workplace health-and-safety duty on the fabricator to control silica dust when cutting, not a ban and not a consent matter for your build. So you can specify stone in a granny flat; for most small rentals, though, laminate or melteca is the more sensible spend.
What paperwork do I need for the kitchen in an exempt granny flat?
You need a Project Information Memorandum from the council on Form 2AA before you start building. When the flat is finished, you notify the council with the final plans, the Records of Work from the Licensed Building Practitioners, and the certificates of compliance from the plumbing and electrical trades. That completion pack is your evidence the kitchen and the rest of the dwelling meet the Building Code, and you should keep it filed with the property records permanently.
Where MTN fits, and how to get a straight answer
We build kitchens at our own workshop in East Tamaki and install them across Auckland under one contract and one invoice, which matters more on a granny flat than on almost any other job, because the kitchen has to satisfy G3, fit a 70m² footprint, and line up with the LBP's Records of Work all at once. We turn out ten-plus kitchens a week and have done for 23 years, so a compact, code-compliant granny-flat kitchen is bread-and-butter work, not a special case. Tell us whether the flat is for family or for rent and we will steer the specification honestly — the modest melteca kitchen that meets the Code and holds up in a tenancy, or the step up that is worth it when you are keeping the flat yourself.
Send us the scope — how many flats, the rough footprint, whether they are family or rental, and where you are up to with the PIM — and we will get a trade-priced number back inside 24 hours, plus GST on supply-and-install. A rough scope is enough to start; drawings sharpen it. We will flag anything on the compliance side that touches the kitchen, point you to what your council and LBP need to confirm, and price it once the layout is settled rather than guessing. The exemption made the flat easier to start. It did not make the kitchen optional, and getting that kitchen right is exactly the part we do all day.