Christchurch buildings demolished without owners' knowledge

More than 10 per cent of buildings demolished in Christchurch following last month's quake were levelled without the knowledge of their owners.

Civil Defence Minister John Carter gave details about demolition orders in the city in Parliament this afternoon.

He said 139 buildings in Christchurch's CBD have been taken down, and of them 17 occurred without their owners being informed.

Mr Carter said 12 of those occurred before March 8 when the search for survivors and the recovery of bodies was the primary focus.

"Goods were not in consideration at that time, now we are conscious of the fact that where possible, where business owners can retrieve their goods we're ensuring that can happen as speedily as possible without any risk to anybody."

He said "thorough efforts" were made to contact the owners of the buildings concerned.

Civil Defence today said it was monitoring almost 40 critical buildings within Christchurch's quake-stricken central business district.

Some of those buildings needed to be stabilised or repaired and wouldn't be demolished, it said.

Buildings classified as critical either stored important infrastructure, were on an key access route, such as a main thoroughfare, or posed a danger to other buildings.

Out of 37 critical buildings, eight had been recommended for repair, three were recommended for stabilisation before demolition, six were likely to be demolished and 13 were assessed as requiring no immediate action.

A further seven buildings were still to be assessed.

Most critical buildings were six or more floors and displayed a red-sticker.

Demolition firm took valuables - business owner

Christchurch man Chris Meyer says demolition businesses helped themselves to valuables in buildings marked for destruction after the September quake.

Mr Meyer owned a coffee house inside the Manchester Courts building, a heritage building demolished after September's magnitude 7.1 quake.

The stripping of valuables inside red-carded premises by demolition companies was a widespread problem, he said.

Mr Meyer was not allowed in to get his property himself and had to pay the company $700 to get some of it back, including a couple of leather couches, two tables, some chairs and an Eftpos system.

He was angry at the lack of communication and lack of access and told NZPA he knew of plenty of business owners going through the same thing.

"A couple of days before the demolition began, I was driving past and saw a (demolition company) truck outside my cafe loading all my furniture.

"I was all for the building coming down after I saw the damage but all I ever asked for was half an hour to go in and get my stuff.

"I saw with my own eyes people going into the building with hard hats and high visibility vests who were not council or Earthquake Commission staff doing tours of the building."

Mr Meyer said if they could let those people in then they could have let him in.

Contracts often allowed salvage rights to the demolition companies, but Civil Defence had put in a clause to stop that happening since the February 22 quake, a Civil Defence spokesman told NZPA.

"Any demolition that we are organising will have that clause - but if a demolition occurred before the February earthquake, then it would depend on the individual contract."

The Christchurch City Council website states "demolition contractors undertaking commercial or red zone demolitions are not allowed to salvage materials. Where possible, goods of value, such as business equipment, will be returned to the owner or tenant."

- NEWSTALK ZB, NZPA