Trust faces new building blow
A Masterton community trust has been dealt another blow with five more buildings identified as a potential earthquake risk, after being blindsided in July by a revelation that six others were suspect.
Detailed structural reviews of six buildings owned by Lands Trust Masterton have confirmed that their structural engineering design does not meet the seismic design standard for new buildings and five more are now facing closer scrutiny.
This new information means that all of these commercial buildings that the trust has built over the past 12 years may have been compromised by their engineering design. This could have a serious impact on the community-owned trust, which holds around $71 million in assets and distributes education and arts grants to the district from is profits.
Lands Trust Masterton general manager Andrew Croskery said when the trust became aware of the concerns with the first six buildings, it moved to assess the other five buildings designed by the same structural engineering firm.
‘‘Now that we have a better understanding of the extent of the issues with the first six buildings, we are working to identify how we can address these and what that will cost. We also need to understand what has gone wrong. These are complicated issues that we are using experts to help us work through,’’ he said.
The trust has notified all the tenants of the potential risk.
Of the six buildings that have now been assessed in detail, three are earthquake prone - below 34 per cent of the New Building Standard (NBS). The other three are assessed at between 34 and 67 per cent of the NBS.
Five more trust-owned buildings, designed by the same structural engineering firm, have also now been identified as potentially not meeting the seismic design standard after initial structural assessments.
The five additional buildings built between 2004 and 2016 are: the Seddon building at 49 Dixon St, the Elliott building at 100 Queen St, Waiata House at 27 Lincoln Rd, and buildings at 115 Chapel St and 203 Chapel St occupied by Supercheap Auto and Farmlands respectively. The initial assessments have put these structures at between 50 and 70 per cent of the NBS. None are potentially earthquake prone.
Croskery said the next step was to have these five buildings also assessed in detail.
‘‘We want to work as quickly as possible to put in place a plan of action to ensure that all buildings comply with Building Act requirements.’’