Building review ignores the latest quake standards

The Government released a landmark stocktake of hospital buildings yesterday, but despite taking two years to complete, the report ignores the latest earthquake engineering advice.

When that advice has been taken into account on other buildings it has seen their new building standard (NBS) quake rating plummet to just 15 per cent from a previous 60 per cent.

The Health Ministry’s National Asset Management Programme (NAMP) stocktake took two years to complete and looked at more than 1100 buildings worth $24 billion and identified $14b of fix-its that will need to take place over the next decade.

The new standards, known as the ‘‘yellow chapter’’, drawn up by the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), can dramatically alter the seismic safety of a building.

They were used to produce an assessment of the Wellington Central Library and found that the building’s rating dropped to 15 per cent when the standards were taken into account, leading to the building’s closure.

The library has an official NBS rating of 60 per cent using only the current code, not the new standards.

The new standards were drawn up after the failure of the relatively modern Statistics

House in Wellington during the 2016 Kaiko¯ura earthquake. The MBIE has published the new standards but has not made a decision yet on whether they should become part of the code.

Wellington City Council made the decision to evacuate the library based on the new standards, given the building’s high foot traffic.

Health Minister David Clark declined to comment, but a Health Ministry spokesperson said the yellow chapter had not

been used on the stocktake.

They did say however that they would encourage DHBs in especially quake-prone areas to take the latest guidelines into account.

‘‘We are working to support DHBs to get detailed seismic assessments of DHB buildings based on 2017 standards.

‘‘There is guidance drafted for seismic assessments and we will include additional material on the pre-cast concrete floors as identified in the ‘yellow chapter’ for earthquake-prone areas,’’ the spokesperson said.

Capital and Coast DHB corporate services general manager Thomas Davis said the yellow chapter had not been used to calculate building ratings in that DHB, which encompasses earthquake-prone Wellington and the Ka¯ piti coast.

‘‘As the yellow chapter is not currently regulation, our engineers do not take it into account when determining the NBS rating of our buildings.

‘‘Should the yellow chapter become part of the required regulation, it would then be taken into account in our assessments,’’ Davis said.

The building standards regarding buildings were last changed in 2017 – this forms the basis for the ‘‘red book’’ which are the mandatory guidelines that must be followed when calculating an NBS rating.

Since 2019, the Ministry of Health has required all DHBs to submit NBS ratings when an assessment had been completed. So far 60 per cent of buildings have had an NBS recorded.

Fifty-two buildings of high importance, like operating theatres and emergency departments, are considered ‘‘earthquake prone’’ under the current guidelines – that figure is likely to grow if the yellow chapter is taken into account. This means most of the health sector’s most important buildings are considered safe under the current rules.

The new standards, known as the ‘‘yellow chapter’’, can dramatically alter the seismic safety of a building.