Shaking up Earthquake Prone Building Legislation

Manawatū District had approximately 100 earthquake prone buildings, many of which are heritage buildings. That number is now reduced to 68 as some have been removed from the register, demolished or strengthened. Manawatū is in the high-risk zone which has a starting point of 15 years for strengthening or demolition. Medium risk zones such as Whanganui have 25 years and low risk zones such as Auckland have 35 years.

Communities, through their councils, in medium and high-risk zones had the opportunity to create priority thoroughfares which halved the time frame. Our council, created priority thoroughfares which reduced the time for strengthening or demolition in most of Feilding’s town centre to 7.5 years. We now have less than 3.5 years.

12 buildings have been strengthened but there are still 30 priority buildings to go, and it just isn’t going to happen before 24 March 2028. The cost to strengthen in most cases is hundreds of thousands of dollars, more for larger buildings, all before renovating and repurposing the building.

Many of these buildings have no current value. The properties are worth land value only making it often hard to justify spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a building with no current value. Demolishing and redeveloping a new building is just as difficult to make work from an investment viability perspective. We definitely don’t want abandoned buildings that council will have to demolish or vacant sites.

It is more likely that our town centre could be destroyed by legislation and policy rather than by an earthquake.

Manawatū District Council has taken a lead nationally in working towards a legislation review. We successfully presented a remit to Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) last year who are now aiding us in discussions with the Government. I have met with Minister Chris Penk three times this year. Minister Penk realised that a change was needed and recently announced a 4-year extension of all deadlines along with a comprehensive review of the legislation. This extends our deadline for priority thoroughfares to 24 March 2032 and is most welcome.

Our MDC approach is not to just kick the can down the road. We see from research that nearly all risk to human life is a result of facades and verandahs falling forward onto footpaths. This is where the focus should be rather than requiring an entire building to be strengthened.

We also see merit in having safe areas within buildings to go to in the event of an earthquake.

The investment in strengthening buildings needs to be affordable with pragmatic time frames and relate to other risks. We will continue to take a lead nationally with the

review of the legislation and look forward to better legislation that recognises the difference between Cuba Street, Wellington and Manchester Street, Feilding.

Deputy Mayor Michael Ford