Councils Holding the Country to Ransom

[Perry]

The aim for designers was to make buildings able to
withstand a one in 500 year earthquake event and
hopefully a one in 2500 year event.

Right! All we need now is the income
levels (of 500 or 2500 years from now)
to manage such events. Yeah, right.
.

[DazRaz]

The cathedral had recently completed a round of strengthening. I remember seeing after 4 Sept, they were showing the work done and why the cathedral survivied. Even doing all that work doesn't make the buildings immune.

[Davo36]

So build buildings to withstand a 1 in 2500 year event?

So for 2499 years the extra cost was wasted...

We could be living in spaceships by then...

This is the same as the fire service saying all properties including houses should have sprinkler systems.

It's just way over the top.

[kapitibeanman]

I can't see it would be any dearer to use modern materials and methods than outdated inferior strength methods that we know fall down. Why would we not use the best techniques we have, just as they did in the past? Given the inevitable compromises we have to make at times.

[Davo36]

You can't see how it would be more costly to put up a modern earthquake engineered building than an old style brick one?

I'm not an expert on this but I'm sure the former would be many times dearer than the latter. I'm talking about commercial buildings here but the same may be true of residential.

Just imagine the engineering design cost alone. Then that has to be peer reviewed by the council's engineers. The time and cost would be huge.

[graemeh]

So build buildings to withstand a 1 in 2500 year event?

Unfortunately the reporters have misrepresented this. You're much better to think of it as a 0.04% event as this is the chance of it happening in a particular year.

This does not mean that the next big quake in Christchurch is 2499 years away.

You may have noticed with "1 in 100 year" floods, i.e. 1% chance, that you can have two of these in 10 years.

[PC]

I thought the standard is to make buildings more "survivable".
They are still demolition fodder - just give the occupants some chance to escape.

[kapitibeanman]

I'm no engineer Davo, but I can see lots of ways it would be more costly to ignore what's been learned since the days the Cathedral was first erected. I think we've got to respect experience gained.
I take your point though. There's a lot of expense & time incurred in the "consent" process. This needs to be sorted somehow, otherwise, for no good reason, Christchurch will be held back.
Hats off to so many people for their efforts so far. I think we all want to cut through anything that might delay recovery, but a lot of patience & tolerance is going to be needed, and we do need to find new paths forward once the reconstruction phase starts in earnest.

[Perry]

I'm no engineer Davo, but I can see lots
of ways it would be more costly to ignore
what's been learned since the days the
Cathedral was first erected.

Brings to mind the more modern building
that 'seemed' to withstand the quake,
but the (more modern) emergency stair
well (in the centre) collapsed in a heap.
The analogy with the cathedral tower
should not be lost on anyone. Yet how
many years apart were they built?
.

[One]

I'm starting to see the point of the emergency bypass-all-legislation-we-want-to Act they passed in September. That may be a way forward.

Suppose there are whole streets that have to be demolished and rebuilt (there are). The govt could pool all the insurance money, run design competitions, and rebuild as a street. The fundamental requirements of each house would prob be similar enough to make for efficiencies in the engineering work. Could end up with streets well-planned around good public spaces. Could make the fundamentals of houses the same for efficiency and get the variety and interest in each place's details.

Or could do it as an expensive slow piecemeal mess - but I hope not!

[DazRaz]

Homeowners have little enough say as it is with the repair work. Last thing we would want is to have the officials nab private insurance money as well. Then no say in the design and fated to live on land that everyone knows didn't fare well in the quake and no one wants to live on for fear of a repeat.

If the area is that stuffed then when bother rebuilding on it.

[One]

Hmm, yes, I see your point. I reckon it could be done in a way that included homeowners, but yes, tricky.

You may be right about abandoning land. Build new suburbs out of town and turn the munted land into parks ... but then homeowners are forced to move out of town. I don't see a win/win solution there either.

[Shalodge]

We have done the same but no talk of where the costs will lie?

A review of Wellington City's Earthquake-Prone-Building Policy ordered after September's big quake in Christchurch has been put on hold.
Wellington city councillors were to be briefed on the review's findings this month. It would now happen later in the year after issues surrounding last week's quake had been evaluated.
Mayor Celia Wade-Brown said many of the council's building inspectors and engineers were in Christchurch at the moment.
"They will be there for some weeks ... so they will be able to feed into the review."
However, emergency management officers will give councillors a mini-briefing today to get them up to speed with what is happening in Christchurch, Ms Wade-Brown said.
The council initially agreed to a programme that would have seen the most at-risk buildings strengthened within five years. Those buildings deemed to be at lesser risk would have had either 10 or 15 years to be strengthened.
But in 2009 the council relaxed its quake-prone policy and extended by five years the timeframe in which work could be completed.
The council's ongoing quake-prone programme has identified about 3800 mainly older commercial and multi-unit apartment buildings as potentially quake-prone under the more stringent definitions in the revised Building Act 2004.
Council engineers and consultants are about halfway through the process of either removing buildings from the quake-prone list or informing the owners that strengthening work is necessary. They have extrapolated that about 600 buildings around the city may need strengthening.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/4714788/Wellington-building-policy-review-after-Christchurch-earthquake

[Perry]

Moderator Note

Please folks, keep posts specifically related to the
Christchurch / Canterbury Earthquake, in its own
thread, located here.

Thanks.

[Davo36]

Interesting Article on Council Debt

City of future debt: Hamilton's $448 million millstone

She's staying positive (click to zoom).



“Underperforming” Hamilton city may be the city of the future, but it’s also the city of future debt.
The city council’s latest debt projection to June 2012 is $448 million and it must be reduced to a manageable level, according to the Property Council’s Waikato branch.
The Property Council believes Hamilton’s financial situation is perilous due to its “ballooning” debt levels, and in a policy manifesto released today calls for the council to take immediate action.
The Hamilton City Council needs to cut back its “excessive” overspending on non-core business services, sell some council-owned assets and lower development contributions.
The manifesto, Initiatives for Hamilton, recommends a plethora of changes to help Hamilton become the city of the future.
It is a public policy discussion document, made up of 16 recommendations for the city and region.
The Tron is on a rapid growth curve, with population projected to increase from 143,000 in 2010 to about 225,000 by 2044.
Property Council Waikato branch president Graham Dwyer said the council had relied too heavily on a proposed flow of development contributions to alleviate debt and provide infrastructure.
“The lingering effects of recession on the property industry, combined with council overspending and the interest costs on city debt is a recipe for a negative growth cycle, unable to cater for the increased infrastructure and services needed to meet the population growth projected for Hamilton,” Mr Dwyer said, also calling for a review of Hamilton’s rating system.
“A fair rating system is one that achieves balance between the individual and businesses that provide revenue and the cost of providing the services and provisions they need. Those that use those services must pay their fair share.”
Hamilton, the super city
Mr Dwyer said Hamilton needed to amalgamate in the style of Auckland’s super city unitary council.
Amalgamation would help maintain a comparatively strong regional economy and counter the economic dynamism of Auckland.
“If we ignore the super city, we risk standing still while Auckland leaves the rest of New Zealand in its wake,” he said.
“We have always successfully competed against a divided Auckland, but Hamilton and other districts will struggle to attract people and capital against an Auckland that is no longer hamstrung by cross-council litigation and boundary squabbles.”
Other recommendations
The paper also recommends a district plan that encourages sustainable and affordable growth to help revitalise the CBD, with guiding principles that would provide certainty, yet flexibility.
“Hamilton and the wider sub-region need a sensible spatial plan to clarify growth and development nodes across the city, which will provide for economic growth and affordable housing opportunities.
“There is no doubt that Hamilton is underperforming.”
The Property Council’s manifesto:

• Hamilton is underperforming
• The CBD economy has stalled
• Local government is underperforming and consequently, ratepayers are paying more to receive less value for money
• Rating policies and development contributions are biased against development and urban regeneration and are seriously affecting business decisions
• Stakeholders currently do not have a say on how that funding is spent

Source


The bit that caught my eye was this:

Property Council Waikato branch president Graham Dwyer said the council had relied too heavily on a proposed flow of development contributions to alleviate debt and provide infrastructure.

Basically councils get a big percentage of their revenue from developer contributions these days. And what have they done with this money? Spent it on developing services like they're supposed to? Or hired more staff? Set up more community events for people to attend? They've taken the money and used it to become a bloated organisation I bet.

And now the money supply has been turned off. The GFC along with the fact that the charges have gotten so high, have turned people off so that they're not building. No building = no development contributions. They've priced themselves off the market.

I would say "good job!" but who pays for this? It's not the council staff (although one can only hope some of them get fired), it's the ratepayers who will have to stump up to pay for all of this. Which means ratepayers are paying for council staff to hire more and more of themselves in their empire building delusions of grandeur. Not at all fair.