Dam Safety Regulations and Dangerous Dams Policy

This consultation closed on 3 December 2023. Thank you for having your say.

We received 65 pieces of feedback about the Dangerous Dams Policy, with 51 of these supporting the policy.

Council staff considered all feedback and submissions, and councillors adopted the policy at the Regulatory and Safety Committee meeting in April 2024.

The Dangerous Dams Policy will apply alongside the Building (Dam Safety) Regulations 2022 from 13 May 2024.

Purpose of the policy 

We developed the Dangerous Dams Policy to meet the requirements of central government’s Building (Dam Safety) Regulations 2022.

The regulations set the same level of standards across New Zealand to:

• make sure dams are safe and continue to be safe 
• protect people, property, infrastructure and the environment
• reduce potential risks of dam incidents and failures.

They also make sure that dams over a certain height or storage capacity ('classifiable' dams) are:

• well-operated
• maintained
• regularly monitored.

Classifiable dams 

In March 2024, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) updated the definition of a classifiable dam in regulation 5 of the Building (Dam Safety) Regulations 2022.

Dams are now classifiable if they:

• are four or more metres in height, and 
• store 20,000 or more cubic metres of water or other fluid. 

We updated the Dangerous Dams Policy to reflect this change.

Read the updated Dangerous Dams Policy 

Dangerous Dams Policy

More information 

Email damsafetyteam@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz if you want to know more about the policy and the new regulations, including how to register a dam.