The cost of holding on to historical buildings

The cost of strengthening buildings that are earthquake-prone poses a significant challenge to small-town New Zealand, Invercargill Central Ltd director Scott O’Donnell says.

This comes after the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) recently announced that all the priority earthquakeprone buildings in New Zealand’s high seismic risk areas had been identified, and it was moving on to identifying the non-priority buildings that needed strengthening.

The register includes 43 buildings in Invercargill, nine in Bluff and three in Gore – 24 of which are listed as heritage buildings.

While he understood the desire to keep historical buildings standing, O’Donnell said it would take a community effort to pay for the upgrades needed to keep them safe.

O’Donnell is also the owner of HW Richardson Group.

When the company bought the two buildings on Tay St that house Motorcycle Mecca, for example, it paid less than $1 million, O’Donnell said, but it spent more than $9 million on strengthening and refurbishment.

And even so, it came out with a New Building Standards (NBS) score of 40 per cent, although it was perfectly safe, he said.

‘‘We’ve got this weird situation where people think you need a 100 per cent NBS rating, but that’s impossible.

‘‘In reality, you’ve just got to make sure the building stays up.’’

This meant ensuring facades and overhangs were firmly attached to buildings, so they didn’t fall and hurt people, which is what happened during the Christchurch earthquakes, he said.

‘‘We need to keep the ones that have significance but, sadly, the rest we have to tear down.’’

At least 16 of the priority buildings in Invercargill have already been torn down as part of the 43 buildings demolished to make way for the CBD redevelopment.

Two of the buildings on the register are owned by the Invercargill City Council. They are the athletics grandstand at 31 Surrey Park Rd, and the water tower and control block at 101 Doon St.

Council compliance specialist Michael Hartstonge said not all the seismic assessments for the buildings on the register had been completed.

Council inspectors visited priority buildings and wrote to business owners requesting engineering assessments, he explained.

Under the Building Act, the council was obligated to proceed as if the building were a high risk if owners failed to supply the engineering assessment, Hartstonge said. Owners of the priority earthquakeprone buildings were given 121⁄2 years to bring the property up to code, while owners of non-priority earthquake-prone buildings had a 25-year deadline.

He said the council was providing as much support to these property owners as it practically could.

‘‘One example is with assistance in accessing funding to help cover engineering assessments where the building is a heritage listed building. This has resulted in Heritage Equip funding of $280,000 and ICC funding of $58,000 towards assisting owners of heritage buildings to obtain good quality engineering advice,’’ he said.

He urged owners to begin planning for the cost of earthquake strengthening. ‘‘We are receiving more and more inquiries due to lending or lease agreements containing clauses around a building’s earthquake status and I expect this to continue.’’

H&J Smith managing director Jason Smith cited the businesses’ inability to make its own decisions on strengthening work as one of the reasons the department store shut its doors in Gore in 2020.