Auckland building Sky World's missing warrant of fitness causes tenants to shut doors

Friday, 3 November 2017

Auckland Council said the building failed to qualify for a warrant of fitness but it was not a matter of safety.

An Auckland entertainment and restaurant mall has been operating for over a year without a warrant of fitness, after Auckland City Council's go-ahead.

Sky World, a six-storey building on Queen Street between Aotea Square and the Civic Theatre, has not had a warrant of fitness since August 2016.

Auckland Council has allowed one of the city's busiest buildings to remain open without a warrant of fitness for 436 days.

Auckland Council general manager of building consenting Ian McCormick said the building was not dangerous, and his staff worked with the owner to make systems compliant.

'This is the first building I've worked on where we've had this kind of lack of engagement from the building owner,' McCormick said.

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McCormick said there were also discussion being had with the council's legal staff about the owner's failure to provide a warrant of fitness and documentations.

When asked, if the council would be liable if someone got hurt while these processes were going on, McCormick said the issue had 'never actually occurred to me'.

Council director of regulatory services Penny Pirrit said the council could take owners to court to pay a $500 fine, but it was not the go-to solution.

'Quite often they are left discharged without conviction.'

McCormick said decision to make prosecutions would be made 'very soon'.

Basement tenant Lilliput Minigolf was not closing, according to an employee.

The building is owned by JNJ Holdings, which bought the property for $37 million in 2011.

The company's sole director, James Kwak, could not be reached for comment.

McCormick said Kwak had been given a deadline until the end of October to provide details on compliance, but he was 'uncertain' if he had met compliance requirements.

Kwak also owns a Japanese restaurant En Izakaya Teppanyaki inside Sky World.

Sky World's first warrant of fitness expired in August 2015, with issues with fire safety that included defective and broken smoke alarms, smoke detectors and smoke extraction systems.

McCormick said buildings can become non-compliant even when they have a WOF and especially if it had many tenants. Sky World has 80 tenants, he said.

In January 2016 the building was granted a warrant of fitness after Kwak wrote to the council and promised to repair fire safety issues.

McCormick described Kwak's behaviour as disengaged, unresponsive and frustrating.

Because the issues remained, Sky World was deemed a 'dangerous building' by the council on 20 December last year.

In the notice, the council wrote 'In the event of fire, injury or death … is likely'.

The notice was lifted in May this year after Kwak began paying $15,000 a day for security guards to act as human smoke detectors.

First Fire managing director Mark Bishop said his company was hired for a period to carry out testing and on-site fire safety protection.

When the company's contract was terminated by Kwak in February this year, Bishop said the building was non-compliant in his opinion.

McCormick said, “The building is safe. If safety was jeopardised we would close the building”.

The Events Cinema in Sky World continues to trade as normal and chief executive Jane Hastings has not visited the site as reported in a previous version of this story.