If you are a building owner, you will have heard of planned law changes relating to the requirements for assessing, strengthening or demolishing earthquake-prone buildings.

The Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill (Bill) has been progressing through Parliament. After receiving a lot of submissions on the Bill, the Government has already signalled various changes, including extending the timeframe for compliance and exempting farm buildings.

Because of the number of changes on the Bill, the Select Committee has taken the unusual step of releasing an interim report, and asking for further submissions on the proposed changes. This means that we now have a further opportunity to influence the outcome of this legislation.

Submissions are being particularly requested on the following issues:

  • Should different timeframes for identifying and remediating earthquake-prone buildings apply, based on the seismic risk of the area?

  • MBIE has recommended that New Zealand be categorised into low, medium and high seismic risk zones, with timeframes for assessment of buildings of five, 10 and 15 years respectively, and for strengthening of buildings of 15, 25 and 35 years respectively. (The previous Bill wording required all earthquake-prone buildings in New Zealand be remediated within 15 years after assessment.)

  • Which types of buildings should be prioritised ahead of those timeframes?

  • MBIE's suggestion is that hospitals, schools, emergency service facilities (such as fire stations and police stations) and other buildings on main transport corridors which are in areas of medium or high seismic risk should be strengthened within half of the standard time frame. (The previous Bill allowed for regulations to be made to designate priority buildings, rather than including those details in the Bill.)

  • Which types of buildings should be excluded?

  • MBIE has recommended also excluding farm buildings, retaining walls, fences, monuments that cannot be entered (such as statues), wharves, bridges, tunnels, and storage tanks (including water reservoirs). (The previous Bill wording only exempted certain residential buildings.)

  • Should a council be permitted to allow earthquake-strengthening work on earthquake-prone buildings, without requiring upgrades to means of escape from fire, or to access and facilities for people with disabilities?

  • Currently any building work requiring a building consent may trigger upgrade requirements. This can greatly increase the cost of strengthening work.

  • If a "substantial alteration" is being done on an earthquake-prone building ahead of the required remediation timeframes, should a council require the earthquake-strengthening work to be done at the same time?

  • Under the current law, individual councils are able to create their own earthquake-prone building policy, which includes whether or not building owners are required to strengthen their buildings at the same time as carrying out other work to the building. In practice, some councils adopted a more active policy than this, where even those councils with a 'passive' policy did require strengthening work to be carried out whenever an application for building consent for a substantial alteration was made. This proposal suggests making this requirement a national mandatory requirement, rather than leaving this to each council's discretion.

In addition, a key change to the Bill is that the building owner will now be expected to arrange, and incur the cost of undertaking, the engineering assessment on a building which the relevant council initially identifies as potentially earthquake-prone. This transfers the cost onto building owners where previously the relevant council was to undertake the initial assessment. Building owners will be required to do this within 12 months of the council's notice, but can apply for an extension if they can't comply within the timeframe because of a shortage of engineers.

A copy of the interim report is available here. Submissions are open until 16 July 2015.

We are happy to assist you to prepare submissions, and recommend that you consider this if you own any buildings that may potentially be earthquake-prone.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.