Council keen for rethink on quakes
Current law on quake-prone buildings penalises smaller centres, mayor says
Central Hawke’s Bay Mayor Alex Walker says she supports moves to have legislation governing earthquake-prone buildings changed, to make the costs of meeting the requirements “more feasible” for rural districts like CHB.
Walker said new timeframes to fix earthquake-prone buildings under the (Earthquake-prone) Buildings Amendment Act 2016, had the potential to be a “big issue” for rural towns like Waipukurau and Waipawa, which are both home to a number of masonry buildings along their main retail strips.
“Yes earthquake strengthening is something causing issues for small communities all around New Zealand, particularly rural ones,” she said.
“My perspective is that it is my job and my council’s job to represent the best interests of this community in how we enact this legislation.”
Under the new legislation, which came into effect last July, buildings will continue to be deemed as earthquake-prone if they meet less than 34 per cent of the New Building Standard (NBS).
Because CHB is a high-risk seismic area, as is the rest of Hawke’s Bay, the district council has until July 2022 to identify all potentially earthquake- prone buildings in the district under the legislation.
Some 63 buildings in CHB were identified as potentially earthquakeprone by the council back in 2012. Sixty are yet to be confirmed as earthquake-prone or not, after work stopped on the project in 2013 at the advice of the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) while councils awaited the findings of the Royal Commission into the Christchurch earthquakes.
Under the new timeframes, owners will be required to provide an engineering assessment within 12 months of their building being identified by council as potentially earthquake-prone, though council will have limited discretion to extend the timeframe for up to a further 12 months.
Owners in high-risk areas like CHB have 15 years to strengthen their buildings, unless they are owners of un-reinforced masonry buildings located on “priority routes”, who will have a shorter seven-and-a-half year timeframe to make their buildings safe.
Also included in the legislation is a “trigger” clause that says when an owner carries out substantial alterations worth at least 25 per cent of a building’s capital value, they must also carry out seismic strengthening works at the same time if it is earthquake-prone. The remit from Local Government NZ ( LGNZ) has requested the clause be changed to say “25 per cent of the capital value or $200,000 whichever is the greater” to make for a “more equitable provision” for regional centres.
The remit was passed “overwhelmingly” at LGNZ’s annual conference last month, with 95 per cent of territorial authorities supporting it.
Walker said for a building with a small capital value in a rural town, the legislation would trigger the earthquake strengthening requirements “very quickly”.
One person with recent experience of successfully bringing an earthquake-prone building up to the minimum 34 per cent rating of the NBS is Alan Sutherland.
Closed since Easter 2014 after it was rated at just 13 per cent of the NBS, St Mary’s Anglican Church in Waipukurau is due to reopen on St Mary’s Day — August 15 — after local parishioners successfully raised more than $200,000. Sutherland, the spokesman for the local subcommittee tasked with strengthening St Mary’s, described his experience of the seismic strengthening process as “costly, time consuming and — at times — frustrating”.
Sutherland said the process started with $10,000 for an initial seismic assessment of the 1929-built church, which withstood the 1931 Hawke’s Bay Earthquake.
“What we got back was a report which basically said the church was made of red brick and it was a risk in an earthquake,” he said.
“We didn’t get much value from it,” he said.
A detailed seismic assessment (DSA) was then carried out at a cost $25,000, with plans for the strengthening work, based on the findings of the DSA, costing a further $25,000.
“Along with consent costs and engineers’ fees, I estimate we spent around $75,000 before even getting a worker on site,” he said.