Northland to debate cost of earthquake safety

There's a burgeoning new industry under way in New Zealand - figuring out how to make buildings as safe as possible from earthquake damage without bankrupting the commercial sector and putting the country's built heritage at risk.

Not to mention the issue of do we impose a "one size fits all" seismic strengthening regime or leave local authorities to devise their own?

The one-size-fits-all question is an important issue for Northland.

The region is the safest place in New Zealand in the earthquake sense, so asking "why should our buildings have to be strengthened to standards devised to keep people safe as houses in the country's wobbliest places?" is quite reasonable.

Whangarei residents now have a chance to have their say on these issues, via the Whangarei District Council, which has just been invited to make submissions to the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission.

The commission was set up to examine issues around the "built environment" in the Christchurch central business district including, but not limited to, the Canterbury Television (CTV), Pyne Gould Corporation (PGC), Forsyth Barr and Hotel Grand Chancellor buildings, and is also required to inquire into the adequacy of the relevant building codes and standards into the future.

The commission must take into account, but not be limited by, a technical investigation undertaken by the Department of Building and Housing.

Whangarei District Council compliance manager Bruce Rogers says the council is already receiving increasing numbers of inquiries from both owners and tenants of various types of buildings wanting to know what they can do to assess risk, and he is extremely pleased that people seem to moving from passive to active responses to seismic strengthening requirements.

The council's current policy on applying the guidelines of the act, developed following wide community consultation, saw council staff doing initial "desk-top" evaluations of about 2000 buildings in the urban area to "identify buildings that might potentially fit criteria relating to being earthquake-prone."

The next step was to ask owners to engage an independent chartered engineer to do a seismic report assessing the building's performance under earthquake conditions.

If the building was assessed as "earthquake-prone" owners had 20 years to re-strengthen the buildings to a plan agreed with council.

About 20 buildings had gone through the process so far, said Mr Rogers.

This approach had been "jump-started" in several ways - such as strengthening done when new works were carried out on a building (as required by WDC policy) and national entities commissioning their own seismic reports, either as building owners or tenants (one building affected).

Mr Rogers said no one should panic, because there were so many factors in the mix, not least that Northland was the least seismic area in the country, and there needed to be more understanding about what constituted an unsafe building, an issue being addressed by the Department of Building and Housing.

"The WDC has tried to take all these things into consideration in its policy, which includes the ability to negotiate outcomes on a case by case basis, taking into consideration the economic impact of seismic strengthening requirements.

"We implore people to talk to us so that we can work with them to get through this together. Talk to us!"

A copy of Whangarei District Council's policy is on the website.