Earthquake strengthening laws set for a major overhaul

Thursday, 20 June 2024

The Government is reviewing the earthquake prone building system to make it easier for owners and councils to make their buildings safe in a more economic way.

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Earthquake strengthening laws causing heartache and financial pain for owners of buildings identified as earthquake prone are set for a major overhaul.

The Government has ordered a review into alternatives to the current New Building Standard (NBS) percentage rating system, which has been labelled as blunt instrument that was not a good measure of risk to life.

Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk released the six page terms of reference for the review of the earthquake prone building system on Thursday - and the aim is to streamline a process that has left hundreds of buildings vacant across New Zealand and facing remediation costs blowing out into the billions.

“Buildings sitting empty and abandoned for months, or, in many cases, years is bad for everyone. Empty, derelict buildings can be dangerous, but they are also a handbrake on growth and development and can suck the life out of a town or city.”

The Wellington Town Hall and its momentous cost blowout is emblematic of the issues created by earthquake prone building remediation.

Nowhere is that more evident than the Capital where stringent new rules have identified more than 1000 buildings as earthquake prone. Costs have run into the hundreds of millions of for ratepayers and billions for the private sector.

Penk said the current legislation was developed in 2016 with the goal of making buildings safer, but it had put huge costs on owners, councils and organisations, “with questionable cost benefit”.

“The earthquake-prone building system attempts to manage risk by requiring earthquake-prone buildings to be remediated before set timeframes, Penk said.

“However, the system is not working as well as it could, and the reality is many buildings are not getting remediated.”

Building and construction minister MP Chris Penk talks to Ghuznee St building owner Alison Bartley about her earthquake prone building.

The terms of reference were wide ranging but the Government has put a tight timeframe on its development aiming to have the draft “high level outline” back in the first half of next year.

Ghuznee St building owner Alison Bartley said she would like to see the current legislation repealed and “more pragmatic, achievable” regulations put in place. “An estimate’s been done that per life saved, the cost of strengthening is about $1.6 billion.”

The review will look at the cost and benefits of the current system and revise the model taking into account the latest seismic hazard data, an updated value of a statistical life, and current estimates around the cost of remediation.

The terms of reference also ask the review to consider how to measure and mitigate risk, technical matters and implementation, finance and funding challenges, regulatory responses, and timeframes.

The review would consider whether the current NBS rating system was the best way to measure and assess seismic risk.

“What are possible alternatives to the percentage new building standard measure (%NBS), for example, a risk-based grading system accounting for consequence of building damage?” the terms of reference ask.

Structural Engineering Society of New Zealand said they welcomed the review.

President Nicholas Brooke said the industry had “gained huge amounts of knowledge since the current system was introduced”.

“Reflecting on this knowledge and ensuring the system is the best it can be is more than warranted.”

“Unfortunately - there is no easy fix for many of our older buildings. This creates a challenge balancing safety, cost, and sustainability.”

“The terms of reference look comprehensive, and will enable a thorough review.”

He said it was important to know what society wanted to do with existing buildings.

WCC chief planning officer Liam Hodgetts said the city can’t cope with its obligations for hundreds of buildings approaching their deadlines.

“Engineers can design fixes for anything, but do not want to unless they achieve something that is actually wanted by the country.”

He said the term “percentage NBS” was confusing and remained poorly understood by the property industry.

Of the 1100 buildings identified as earthquake prone in Wellington, more than 500 have now been remediated. But Wellington council still has 570 earthquake prone buildings on its register which it has a statutory obligation to resolve.

Chief planning officer Liam Hodgetts said the review was important to help the city work through the issue because they “simply don’t have the resources” to handle the current workload.

“So this is going to allow us to get on top of the multitude of issues that we come across.”