Gaps remain in quake-prone building legislation

Throughout the process, Engineering New Zealand Te Ao Rangahau has broadly supported reviewing and updating the legislation so that we can make strengthening buildings a cheaper, faster, more achievable and sustainable process.

Moving away from a “one size fits all” system will pivot the regime towards targeting and prioritising higher-risk areas and buildings that pose the greatest life-safety risk, which is a common-sense approach.

The updated system should also address the issue of earthquake-prone buildings sitting vacant for years on end, with owners unable or unwilling to meet the prohibitively high costs of strengthening.

However, we remain concerned about key aspects of the legislation, and which we continue to believe warrant further consideration.

Exclusion areas

There is broad agreement that a new system needs a better way of prioritising the higher-risk areas, and there is strong merit to consider treating low seismic areas differently. However, we consider the blanket exclusion of Auckland, Chatham Islands and large parts of the upper North Island from the system is an oversight.

Low seismic area does not equate to zero risk. There are already some significant examples of high-risk buildings in the Auckland region, such as unreinforced masonry buildings in busy pedestrian areas, that are now excluded from any safeguards to manage them.

We are concerned this poses a genuine life-safety risk to the public that must be captured by the new system in some way.

Priority buildings

The new Bill provides more flexibility and allowances for certain buildings and assets to give them longer timeframes to address seismic issues.

While we acknowledge some merit in providing extended time frames in certain scenarios, in order to prioritise efforts and resources in the most appropriate places, we believe the definition of priority buildings – which includes hospitals, schools and emergency facilities – are misaligned and pose an unnecessary level of risk.

We believe assets and buildings which are critical in a local, regional or national emergency should be among the safest buildings in our communities and should be prioritised to be remediated in the shortest practicable timeframe and ideally to a higher-than minimum standard.

Methodology

The effectiveness of the new system is highly, if not entirely reliant, on new earthquake-prone building methodology, which is yet to be fully developed or consulted on. The methodology will be what determines which buildings are identified as earthquake-prone and what remediation measures are required.

While we commend Government for its efficiency in progressing this Bill through the house, doing so without the methodology in place has made it challenging for users of the system to fully understand and evaluate the incoming changes.

Looking ahead, Engineering New Zealand is supporting development of the new methodology through its BRiDGE programme, which is partnering with MBIE on the drafting process. More information on the project team can be found here.

Summary

The incoming changes should enable a more targeted, risk-based earthquake-prone building regime that we fully support in principle, but we must ensure the new system keeps life-safety and risk at the centre of decision-making. The consequences of getting it wrong would be devastating.

We will continue to update our members on how these new changes will impact them, and will continue to consult with relevant agencies and stakeholders and advocate on our areas of concern.

For more information on the changes, head to the MBIE website

You can also read our previous submission on the Bill here.