Earthquake Issues for Commercial Buildings

[Davo36]

a follower of men

a leader of little boys

Haha I like that.

[Davo36]

I think the government needs to go even further and address some of the costs of upgrading these buildings.

Given that your chance of dying in an earthquake are near zero, it's basically a waste of money and resources to strengthen a lot of them, especially in the safer areas.

I think only the most dangerous buildings in the most risky areas should be given attention. And even then, perhaps with some government and council money thrown in, as is the case for leaky buildings.

[Wayne]

I presume the 'return period' works into the definition of the strength standard required (ie lower return period means higher strength)?
Mainly this just changes how fast you have to do the work.
I agree that addressing the cost is required - even making the work expence rather than capital (and therefore non-deductable) would help

[Davo36]

- even making the work expence rather than capital (and therefore non-deductable) would help

Yeah if you have to spend $500000 strengthening your property and it adds no value to it at all - i.e. it's still worth what it was before you strengthened it, then it's not really a capital item IMHO.

[Wayne]

Yeah if you have to spend $500000 strengthening your property and it adds no value to it at all - i.e. it's still worth what it was before you strengthened it, then it's not really a capital item IMHO.

your view and mine maybe but not the IRD's at the moment unfortunately

[Davo36]

your view and mine maybe but not the IRD's at the moment unfortunately

Yep, because that would mean less money for them...

[John the builder]

can someone explain how requiring the same strengthening but over 35 years instead of 15 saves from 1330 million to 770 million and why only 30000 buildings now affected instead of 500000?

The problem is really that tenants (and banks and insurers?) want stronger buildings but they have no idea what they are getting for their NBS buck. They will be no better off in a 100NBS building than a 70% NBS (and perhaps a 35%NBS ?).


The buildings will still need to be demolished after a moderate earthquake as likely too expensive and difficult to repair (based on chch experience) unless they are modern buildings built with resilience today and designed to be repaired.

[Davo36]

can someone explain how requiring the same strengthening but over 35 years instead of 15 saves from 1330 million to 770 million and why only 30000 buildings now affected instead of 500000?

Yeah doesn't make sense to me either.

You'd think that 30000/500000 = 6% so it should be 6% of the cost not like 2/3 or so. Methinks the herald or someone has gotten one of those numbers wrong. It's either 300,000 buildings to be inspected or 77 million.

[John the builder]

There are serious issues with the ministers speech;

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2076835-1-speech.html#document/p1

he says on page 2 that no one was killed in building over 34% but this is wrong and both pine gould and CCTV buildings were not earthquake prone and were built after 1976

I think he is getting the numbers down by removing 260000 farm buildings and retaining walls and the like but I dont think they ever were EQ prone category. (as no risk of injury in collapse)

His assertion that there is 10 x the risk in under 34% building is not substantiated.

He is going to red and yellow card all buildings so they will be stigmatized anyway?

[Davo36]

They're not really solving the problem, just kicking the can down the road.

[eri]

thought i saw something about those 2?

not having 34% strength of current new build standards

because of design flaws that they now better understand

[Davo36]

I don't like this whole labelling of buildings as being safe, unsafe etc.

Why not label each house in Auckland as a certain percentage chance of volcanic eruption damage? Or flooding risk? Or any number of things...

[Wayne]

They're not really solving the problem, just kicking the can down the road.

what is the problem?

[John the builder]

the problem is the wholesale loss of value and rental income from pre 1976 buildings simply because they may be under an arbitary 34% NBS standard. Areas in high risk should be considered seriously but in the low risk areas like Auckland this is an overreaction.
Tenants are panicked into thinking their employees and customers are at risk and are wanting close to 100%NBS in the mistaken belief that this makes them safer. The chch experience was that in a very severe earthquake badly designed buildings may collapse (CTV and Pine Gould) even if they are above 34% (as these were) but generally the buildings we worry about the unreinforced masonnry were not associated with deaths as they didn't generally collapse.

The emphasis should be on protecting public streets from falling debris and veranda collapses as this is what killed most people (not killed in CTV and PG).

What Nick Smith has done is clarify the buildings we are looking at (now not farm buildings and retaining walls) which is sensible but has has simply pushed the problem out to 35 years for low risk buildings which leaves tenants and employees etc still nervous and unsure.

The answer was to make the risk realistic for the low risk areas and allow owners to mitigate risk for death and injury by making allowance for protection of occupants and safe exitways from buildings and protecting the public in the street.

[Wayne]

Does the standard required vary on the risk of the area?