In his first ‘villainous' role, Tauranga Mayor Stuart Crosby thinks his defence of the city's building fees regime went well.

Stuart's interview with Campbell Live reporter Lachlan Forsyth was on Tuesday and is expected to be aired later this week.

Mayor Stuart Crosby says criticism of the city's building fees regime is misconceived because in Tauranga they are a combination of costs that in other cities and districts are separated.

The television show required a mayoral defence of the city's building consent fees, which are claimed to be the most expensive in the country.

'No doubt I will be the villain in the thing,” says Stuart.

'That's how they do it; they have a victim and a villain, that's how it works. We will see what happens. I think it went well.”

Tauranga is the only city in the country's growth areas of Auckland, Hamilton and Queenstown to separate out development contributions and building impact fees.

'The other three integrate all their costs into section development whereas we split it –some into section development and some into when a new home or commercial building is built,” says Stuart.

'That's the difference. The actual building consenting part, getting plans assessed, paying government levies, doing the building inspections is generally the same around New Zealand.”

For a $300,000 building the consenting fees in Tauranga are about $3800, a little over one per cent of the cost of building.

'And that's about normal up and down New Zealand,” says Stuart.

The people complaining about high fees are not really comparing apples with apples, says Stuart.

The development contribution side, the $18,000 to $20,000 includes the homeowner's cost to obtain the streets, water, sewerage, parks and reserves and council facilities.

'If we had our time over again, and I'm going back to the early ‘90s now, we, in my view, would have it all integrated into the section price,” says Stuart.

'What we were trying to do was to be fairer.

'What we do is we charge the section components for on site costs and we charged the rest which are district wide contributions, when people actually build a house and move into it.”

They created a lost opportunity for council by separating it out, says Stuart, because of the time lag between when the development finishes and the building starts.

Campbell Live's interest in Tauranga follows a story aired in February about Dunedin being the most expensive city in which to build.

The show's makers were contacted by at least one Tauranga builder telling them they were wrong and that Tauranga is the most expensive.