112 buildings with risky cladding
Te Papa Museum, hotels, supermarkets, a high school and apartment blocks are just some of more than 100 Wellington buildings with cladding similar to that seen in London’s fatal Grenfell Tower fire.
Wellington City Council has released a list of 112 buildings it identified that were clad in aluminium composite panelling (ACP) – a product linked to the Grenfell tower disaster in June 2017 that had claimed 72 lives.
Earlier this year, the owners of 18 buildings in the capital were told to seek an engineer’s fire assessment.
Although these sites have now been deemed ‘‘low risk’’, the council said it wanted to be ‘‘transparent’’ with the public. In a statement, it stated none of the buildings presented significant concerns in terms of the presence of ACP and the safety of occupants.
In 2017, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) investigated the use of aluminium composite panel son New Zealand buildings. To assist with that work, the council investigated buildings featuring ACP around the city.
That confirmed the exteriors of the 112 buildings in Wellington City feature ACP to a greater or lesser degree.
The type of ACP in 47 buildings could not be established, including Wellington’s tallest building – the Majestic Centre. Those buildings ranged from properties with varying levels of exterior ACP cladding on their facades to premises where the presence of ACP may be limited to some exterior signage.
The council’s building compliance manager, Chris Scott, said about 4800 building files across the city were reviewed. Sites identified through this process were then visually checked.
It had taken some months to make the ACP list public because the council has been working with building owners, Fire and Emergency New Zealand and fire safety experts to ensure the status of all buildings was fully understood and that owners could provide information to occupants.
‘‘We have found that no building gives us significant concerns in terms of the presence of ACP and the safety of occupants. The multi-storey buildings with elements of ACP have generally been built in the past three decades and feature a variety of life safety features that allow occupants time to evacuate the building in the event of fire.’’
Te Papa spokeswoman Kate Camp said the museum had a small amount of ACP cladding, which – despite the risk was assessed as low – it had decided to replace. ‘‘Keeping people and taonga safe is incredibly important to us, we appreciate the work the WCC did to assess buildings.’’
ACP was also located at the TSB Arena but a council spokesman said he was more than satisfied the venue did not present any significant safety problems.
ACP was located in the two lower levels of the Wellington East Girls’ College building. Principal Sally Haughton said the site was still under construction. After the Grenfell disaster, the building was reassessed by the project team and, after advice from the Ministry of Education, fire consultants and architects, it was upgraded to another product.
The cladding was found in about a dozen apartment buildings. Among them were: 1-8 Clyde Quay Wharf, Monvie Apartments, Soho Apartments, Fusion Apartments and Revolucion Apartments.
The list also included hotels, including Hotel Sofitel, Bolton Hotel, the Thorndon Hotel, Rydges Hotel, Quest and Novotel.