Pending changes to regulations affecting earthquake-prone buildings appear positive but major questions are still to be answered.
Richard Thompson, chairman of the Wanganui earthquake-prone buildings taskforce set up in 2012, said announcements from Building and Housing Minister Nick Smith last week put the city in the medium-risk zone.
That means building owners have more time to assess their properties and carry out any strengthening needed.
The amended timeframe gave owners 10 years for assessments and 25 for strengthening - as opposed to five and 15 years.
More time would be a huge relief and would let owners plan for and spread the cost in a more achievable way. It also allowed time for new technologies to be developed that would be cheaper and less disruptive.
"However, there are still some big questions, especially how and when councils will do the assessments," Mr Thompson said.
"This is very complicated in Wanganui where, in many cases, initial evaluation procedure (IEP) assessments have already been done. Will that be deemed as being assessed under new legislation or will they have to be done again?" he asked.
"And, if deemed done, does that mean the clock for strengthening work starts ticking immediately?"
While more time was generally positive for building owners their liability remained, he said - and there were still matters of community safety to consider.
Wanganui had a lot of unreinforced masonry buildings with low IEP ratings but these were not necessarily likely to collapse in an earthquake.
"From research done here and elsewhere, they have performed better than expected."
He favoured the Centre for Advanced Engineering's proposal that an alternative compliance route be developed for these buildings, with the most dangerous parts fixed but the building was allowed to "fail safely" in a major quake.
"The taskforce has identified that the biggest risk to public safety in Wanganui is from bits of buildings falling into the street in the central business district. Securing these is important and we will be working with owners to achieve it."
Other positive news was that a new Centre for Earthquake Resilience had just been funded. An initiative between Canterbury and Auckland universities, further testing in Wanganui was part of the application.
The Wanganui taskforce includes architects, engineers, heritage advocates, building owners and developers, Mainstreet and district council officers. It next meets on May 28.
Council deputy property manager Leighton Toy said Wanganui had many heritage buildings which must be upgraded to 34 per cent of the New Building Standard: "The changes to the bill will take some pressure off building owners who are trying to retain heritage in our community while ensuring safety."
Other changes include prioritising buildings used for education or emergencies, and excluding farm buildings, retaining walls, fences, monuments, wharves, bridges, tunnels and storage tanks from requiring strengthening.