New Zealand lets farmers build some pole sheds and hay barns up to 110 m² without building consent. It’s a useful rule, but it’s narrower than most people think. The condition that rules out most modern farm sheds is a 6 m limit on unsupported roof span.
The full list of conditions #
To be exempt, the shed has to meet every one of these:
- It’s in a rural zone under your district plan, and not a rural-residential zone.
- It’s a single storey, with the floor no more than 1 m above the ground and the building no more than 4 m high above the floor.
- It’s no more than 110 m² in floor area.
- No part of the roof spans more than 6 m unsupported, in any direction.
- It’s not accessible to the public.
- It’s not used to store hazardous substances.
- It’s in a wind zone no higher than “high”, or designed for wind speeds of 44 m/s or less.
- It sits at least its own height away from any house, public road, railway or legal boundary.
- It’s designed by a chartered professional engineer, or designed and built (or supervised) by a licensed building practitioner.
“Rural zone” is narrower than “in the country” #
The exemption uses your council’s zoning, not how the property looks. A lifestyle block zoned rural-residential or countryside living usually doesn’t count, even with stock in the paddock. Check the zone on your council’s district plan maps before you plan around the exemption.
The 6 m span limit #
This is the condition that matters most. A traditional pole shed with a row of poles down the middle can keep every span under 6 m. A clear-span shed, with no posts inside, usually can’t, because a useful implement or hay shed is normally deeper than 6 m.
That’s a real trade-off. Internal posts cost you turning room for machinery and get hit by tractors and loaders. For many farmers, the open floor is worth the consent.
If staying exempt matters most, we can add mid-span posts to any Steelspan shed so no roof span is wider than 6 m. You lose some open floor, but the option is there.
Fuel, chemicals and the public #
If the shed will hold fuel, agrichemicals or other hazardous substances, the exemption doesn’t apply. The same goes for any building the public can get into, such as a farm shop or a woolshed used for events. Plan the use honestly at the start.
Is getting consent a bad thing? #
Not really. A consented farm building comes with engineered drawings, inspections and a code compliance certificate. That paperwork helps with insurance, finance and selling the farm, and it confirms the shed was built to handle your site’s wind and snow loads.
At Steelspan, this applies whether your building is consented or exempt. Every building is designed for its specific site by a chartered professional engineer here in New Zealand, with full calculations and a PS1 design producer statement, exactly as if it were going to council. Even if your shed is exempt, you keep a full set of engineered documents and the PS1 for your property file.
Whoever builds it should also give you a PS3, a construction producer statement confirming the work was done in line with the engineer’s design. If we build it, we provide the PS3; if your local builder does, they should. Keep both together for your insurer and for when you sell the property.
Consent costs. Council fees for a simple farm shed vary a lot around New Zealand, from as little as about $750 in some districts to about $2,500 in others. Most councils publish their fees online, or we can look into it for you. We handle consents for clients right across the country.
Talk to Steelspan #
Tell us what you need to store and how you’ll move around inside, and we’ll design the building first, then tell you honestly whether it fits the exemption. Start with our Easy Shed Quote or call 0800 787 726.
