19 Aug 2025
Engineering New Zealand (on behalf of the Joint Committee for Seismic Assessment and Retrofit) is seeking feedback on proposed changes to the Non-Earthquake-Prone Building (non-EPB) Seismic Assessment Guidelines.
Changes are being made to improve the clarity, consistency and accuracy of non-earthquake-prone building assessments – and incorporate the latest technical information available to engineers.
Three areas of the non-EPB Seismic Assessment Guidelines are out for consultation:
- C4 (Geotechnical Considerations) – improving clarity and consistency and further encouraging focused specialist geotechnical input to seismic assessment of existing buildings.
- C8 (Unreinforced Masonry Buildings) – updating and strengthening the guidance. In most cases, the new information will provide expanded clarification or is addressing an identified omission in the 2017 issue of C8.
- New Section C11 (Reinforced Masonry) – offering detailed guidance for assessing Reinforced Concrete Masonry (RCM) buildings. It includes an overview of RCM construction history in New Zealand, recommendations for site testing, probable material properties, and methods for calculating the capacity of structural elements.
Updates to the Non-EPB Seismic Assessment Guidelines are not a part of the Earthquake-prone Building System Review that the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) is currently undertaking. Updates to the Guidelines were underway before the EPB System Review was announced in 2024.
For information on this consultation and the changes being proposed you can visit our dedicated consultation page.
Engineering New Zealand invites you to have your say on the proposed changes to the Guidelines from Tuesday 19 August 2025 until Sunday 14 September.
To provide feedback on the changes, please complete the submission form and email it to nonEPBguidanceconsultation@engineeringnz.org
Once the consultation has closed, comments will be compiled for the Joint Committee’s review and the Committee expects to publish the final version of the Non-EPB Seismic Assessment Guidelines with changes by the end of 2025.
A note on the non-EPB Seismic Assessment Guidelines
There are two sets of guidelines that can be used by engineers to carry out assessments of the seismic performance of existing buildings.
- The 2017 Seismic Assessments of Existing Buildings – Technical Guidelines for Engineering Assessments (EPB Seismic Assessment Guidelines) developed by the Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) must be used by engineers when carrying out seismic assessments under the earthquake-prone building (EPB) system, as this is required by legislation.
- Seismic assessments and ratings are used for many purposes outside of the earthquake-prone building system, (for example, for marketing or insurance purposes). For any of these purposes an engineer may choose to use the Non-EPB Seismic Assessment Guidelines.
This consultation relates to the latter of the guidelines.
