Strong support for a partnership approach to identifying and strengthening earthquake-prone buildings will see the Whakatāne District Council proceed with a geotechnical study of the ground conditions in Whakatāne’s central business district.
The Council had proposed funding and managing the study, providing that at least half of the owners of the buildings on CBD Harbour lease land registered their interest in undertaking detailed seismic assessments of their premises within 12 months of the ground study’s completion. Planning and Strategy General Manager David Bewley says the exercise aims to allow landlords to make informed decisions about whether to strengthen or redevelop their buildings and to maximise the number of buildings which meet forthcoming Government earthquake resistance standards as quickly as possible.
“Preliminary assessments indicate that 92 CBD buildings would not meet the Government’s announced requirement that all existing commercial or public buildings will have to meet at least 34 percent of the earthquake resistance capability of a new building,” he explains. “Once the new law passes through Parliament, owners will have 15 years to either strengthen or demolish earthquake-prone buildings, and the Council believes it is in the wider community’s interests to have that work completed as efficiently and economically as possible.”
Of the 92 buildings identified, 71 were eligible to take part in the assessment process, the remainder being either Council-owned (and therefore already involved), scheduled for demolition or replacement, or the building owners already have already organised detailed seismic assessments to identify the work required to bring them up to an acceptable standard.
“At this stage, the owners of close to two-thirds of the eligible buildings in the Whakatāne CBD have registered their interest in taking part in the Council-managed process, and a number of others are likely to join in,” Mr Bewley says. “On that basis, the Council will undertake the ground study, which will feed-in to the detailed structural assessments and inform owners about the seismic strengthening options for their properties.”
The CBD ground study will be funded from Harbour lease funds and will not affect rates costs. It is proposed that the Council project-manages the detailed building assessment process, generating economies of scale which should reduce the cost of structure earthquake resistance assessments for owners by up to 15 percent.
Mr Bewley says uncommitted owners of buildings on Harbour lease properties are welcome to join in the earthquake-prone building assessment process. “The Council is also prepared to project-manage the ground investigations and detailed seismic assessments process for the owners of freehold commercial properties. Any interested property owners should contact the Council for further information.”
Tenders will be called for the geotechnical (ground) study within the next two weeks, and the results are expected to be available later this year. The Council will also advance the tender process for a combined approach to detailed structural assessments, with the aim of having the bulk of buildings assessed by the end of 2015.