Quick answer
In a 70m² granny flat, the storage comes out of the cabinetry, because the exemption requires the dwelling to be single-storey with no mezzanine floor. The sleeping loft and the storage platform above it are disqualifiers, not variations. So the kitchen carries the whole unit: a full-height tower standing in for the hall cupboard you don't have, uppers run to the ceiling, a cabinet over the fridge, drawers in the toe-kick. Draw it as the storage strategy for the dwelling and 70m² works. Draw it as a kitchen and the vacuum lives in the shower.
Key points
- Single-storey with no mezzanine floor is a hard condition, so the sleeping loft with the boxes behind it kills the exemption.
- Floor area is measured between the internal faces of the external walls, and an attached or internal garage counts inside the 70m².
- With no loft and no room for a scullery, the kitchen becomes the storage strategy for the whole dwelling.
- The plumbing conditions rule out pumped systems inside the building, so gravity decides where the sink lands and the joinery works around it.
- Rent it out and Healthy Homes means the rangehood vents outdoors — that 150mm duct runs through the upper bank you just made taller.
A mezzanine floor disqualifies the whole exemption.
A 900-odd square metre section in Te Atatū Peninsula, a long shared drive, a plan drawn on the kitchen table over summer. Sleeping platform under the rake at the bathroom end, a ladder, the suitcases and the Christmas boxes behind it. Everyone draws this first, because 70m² sounds tight and a loft looks like free floor area. The LBP takes about four seconds with it. That platform is a mezzanine floor. No mezzanine means no exemption, which means a consent — the entire thing you were avoiding.
So the loft goes, and everything it was holding goes with it. Nothing else in a 70m² plan volunteers to take that on. The bedroom is already at the size where the wardrobe doors and the bed argue. The bathroom is a prefabricated shower unit and a vanity. There is no hallway worth the name. The load lands on the joinery whether you plan for it or not. This is about which of the storage moves that actually get used belong in an exempt dwelling, and in what order.
What the rule actually says, and what it doesn't
The wording isn't ambiguous, which is unusual and helpful. MBIE's building design conditions checklist gives it one line: single-storey — no mezzanine. The guidance expands that to "one-storey only, without a part-storey or mezzanine floor". Schedule 1A of the Building Act says the dwelling must not contain a mezzanine floor. Three bites at the same apple. A part-storey counts. A half-level over the bathroom counts. Whether the ladder is fixed or you carry it in on Boxing Day makes no difference.
Here's the part people miss. The exemption bans the floor, not the volume. Maximum building height is 4 metres above floor level, and nothing says the ceiling has to be flat or low. You can rake it. You can have the void. You just can't put a floor in it. Cabinetry isn't a storey — a tall cabinet is joinery, the same as a wardrobe is joinery — so the height the loft wanted is still yours. Drawing cupboards? Fine. Drawing something a person could stand on? Ask your LBP first.
The other condition nobody reads as a design constraint: floor area is measured between the finished internal faces of the external walls, and an attached or internal garage may be included in the 70 square metres. So the classic escape — hang a garage off the side for the mower and the bikes — doesn't work if it's attached.
The loft was doing a job. Name it before you delete it.
A loft in a small dwelling is never really about sleeping. It's about the two cubic metres of clutter with nowhere else to be. Delete it and you haven't lost a bedroom, you've lost the layer that makes a small home tolerable past about week six. This is where these projects quietly fail: plan signed off, shell up, kitchen drawn as three base units, two uppers and a fridge, and eight weeks later there's a vacuum behind the door.
In a bigger house you'd solve this with a scullery and stop thinking about it. At 70m² a scullery costs a wall and a door swing you don't have, and it's the wrong tool anyway — it hides mess, it doesn't create capacity. Capacity comes from vertical joinery, and the kitchen wall is usually the only long, uninterrupted, serviced wall in the building. The kitchen isn't competing for storage. It's the only bidder.
The four moves that put the loft back into the cabinetry
None of these are clever. All of them get value-engineered out of small jobs because they read as optional on a quote. They aren't optional here. Get the standard cabinet heights in front of you, see what the default drawing gives you, then take each move deliberately.
| Move | What it costs | What it gives back | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full-height tower (600 or 900 wide) | One bay of bench and the upper above it | Broom, vacuum, ironing board, tall dry goods | Eats your only long wall. Draw it and the fridge together or they'll fight. |
| Uppers to the ceiling, not standard height | Nothing. Same footprint, taller carcass. | An extra shelf of deep-store above head height | Top shelf needs a step. Put things there you touch twice a year. |
| Cabinet over the fridge | Nothing, if drawn before the fridge is bought | The most wasted void in any small kitchen | Specify the actual model. A taller fridge deletes this cabinet on install day. |
| Drawers in the toe-kick | A modest line on the quote, a shallower plinth | Flat storage across the base run: trays, foil, pet bowls | Only worth it on a run of real length, and only with decent runners. |
Two more while you're there. Deep drawers instead of doors in the base run cost a known step-up and let you reach the back of the cabinet, which is where small-kitchen storage goes to die. And the corner: at 70m² the kitchen is usually an L, so one blind corner — either a proper mechanism or a cupboard that swallows the slow cooker for three years. Read the corner options compared first.
Drainage picks the sink. The sink picks your storage.
This one surprises people. The plumbing conditions are specific: no pumped systems inside the building, main drain DN100 or larger at a minimum 1:60 grade, branch drains DN65 or larger at 1:40, upstream vents DN65 or larger, no more than 30 fixture units. Add a floor level no more than 1 metre above the supporting ground, and you have a building that runs on gravity.
In a normal renovation, if the sink wants to be where the drainage isn't, you move the drainage and eat the cost. Here you generally don't. Your drainlayer finds the fall and the joinery gets drawn around that answer. It matters because the sink bay is your worst cabinet — a bin and half a bottle of spray, and that's the lot. If gravity puts the sink in the middle of your only long wall, it has just eaten the run where your tower was going.
Renting it out? The duct runs through the cabinet you just made taller.
The exemption doesn't require the dwelling to house family. Let it to a tenant and it's a rental, so Healthy Homes applies. The kitchen touchpoint is ventilation, and it's precise: in any room with a cooktop, a new fan or rangehood needs a minimum diameter including ducting of 150mm, or an exhaust capacity of at least 50 litres per second, venting outdoors. Not back into the room. Not into a roof space. A recirculating unit with a carbon filter doesn't satisfy it — read the case for ducted versus recirculating first.
Now put that next to the move you just made. You took the uppers to the ceiling to recover a shelf. That 150mm duct has to reach outside air, and with a 4 metre height limit there isn't much void to hide it in. So either the hob sits on an external wall and the duct goes straight out through the cladding, or it travels through the top of a cabinet and that bay loses its top shelf. Both are fine. Nobody drawing it is not. Our rundown of Healthy Homes for landlords covers the rest.
Every one of these I've been on, the duct is the last thing anyone thinks about and the first thing that wrecks the cabinet layout. Draw the hole before you draw the doors.
Four moves put the loft back into the cabinetry.
What goes wrong
The failure modes are consistent, and almost none are about the kitchen being badly made. They're about sequencing.
- The loft survives on the drawing until the PIM comes back. Council flags whether the build looks likely, unlikely or unclear against the criteria, single storey included. "Unlikely" there means the joinery moves too.
- Nobody does the storage audit. The kitchen gets designed as a kitchen, and the dwelling is unpleasant to live in two months after handover.
- The tower gets cut. It reads as "just a tall cupboard" on a quote, so it's first struck when the number needs trimming — and it's the cheapest storage in the building.
- The fridge is chosen after the joinery is ordered. The cavity was drawn for something shorter, the over-fridge cabinet vanishes, the door lines never recover.
- The bin isn't planned. In a 70m² dwelling a bin on the floor is a permanent obstacle in your only circulation space.
- The two-year clock gets forgotten. Work must be complete within two years of the PIM issue date, documentation to council inside 20 working days. Bespoke joinery has a lead time.
What to ask before you sign anything
- Ask your LBP to confirm in writing that nothing in the drawing reads as a part-storey or mezzanine floor.
- Ask where the gravity drainage lands, and whether it has already fixed the sink position, before you approve a layout.
- Ask for the actual fridge model, and get the cavity drawn to it with the over-fridge cabinet on the elevation.
- Ask whether the duct route is drawn, which cabinet loses its top shelf, and whether it terminates outdoors.
- Ask where the hot water system and the switchboard live, and whether that's a cupboard you'd counted as storage.
- Ask for the uppers drawn to the ceiling and the toe-kick drawers priced as a visible line, not an omission.
- Ask whether it's supply and install under one contract and one invoice, or whether you're coordinating three trades.
One more, and it pays for itself: ask to see the elevation, not just the plan. A plan view hides every one of the four moves. Storage is a vertical argument and it can only be won on an elevation — which is also most of the trick to making a small kitchen feel bigger.
Frequently asked questions
Can I have a sleeping loft in a 70m² granny flat if the ladder is removable?
No. The condition is about the building, not how you get up there. MBIE's checklist says "single-storey — no mezzanine", and Schedule 1A says the dwelling must not contain a mezzanine floor. A removable ladder changes nothing — the floor is still there. If you genuinely need the loft, that's a consented project.
Can I use the raked ceiling void for tall cabinets instead of a loft?
Generally yes, and it's the best answer available. The exemption caps height at 4 metres above floor level but says nothing about ceiling shape, and a tall cabinet is joinery, not a storey — the same way a wardrobe isn't. The volume the loft wanted is still yours to fill with doors and shelves. Cupboards, not platforms.
Does an internal garage or a separate shed give me the storage back?
An attached or internal garage doesn't help — the exemption counts it inside the 70 square metres. A detached shed sits under a different exemption pathway with its own conditions, and that one doesn't allow cooking or sanitary facilities. It's a store, not an annexe. It'll take the bikes and the mower, not the vacuum or the linen.
Do I need a ducted rangehood if I'm not renting the granny flat out?
The Healthy Homes ventilation standard bites when you rent it: 150mm minimum diameter including ducting, or at least 50 litres per second, venting outdoors. If you're not renting, the Building Code still applies and your LBP will tell you what the ventilation clause needs. Duct it anyway — a recirculating hood means the whole dwelling smells like last night's dinner.
What does a kitchen for a 70m² granny flat cost, and how long does it take?
A compact exempt-dwelling kitchen sits at the friendlier end of the range — entry grade lands in the lower five figures plus GST, supply and installed, and mid-range climbs into the mid five figures once you're into stone. Towers and taller uppers add carcass without adding bench, so linear metres aren't the whole story. Installs typically run five to seven days.
Send us the plan, even the rough one
We build in our own workshop in East Tamaki and turn out ten-plus kitchens a week, so a 70m² granny flat kitchen is a familiar job, not a special project. Send the footprint, where the drainage lands if you know it, the fridge you're actually buying, and whether the unit is lived in or let. We price off a rough scope and sharpen it once there are drawings — trade-priced number back inside 24 hours.
It comes back as supply and install under one contract and one invoice. No showroom, no margin stacked on a subcontracted installer, one number to hold while the PIM clock runs. Twenty-three years, 2,000-plus kitchens across Auckland, Site Safe qualified. If the loft has just come off your drawing and you're wondering where everything goes, have that conversation now — at elevation stage, not on install day with a holesaw in someone's hand.