Earthquake Issues for Commercial Buildings

[Maccachic]

From Property Council Newsletter:

EARTHQUAKE-PRONE BUILDINGS: TAXATION ISSUES PART TWO
Following intensive advocacy efforts by Property Council and our members, key Government Ministers are seriously contemplating tax relief for earthquake strengthening after coming to grips with the scale of the problem facing our industry.
Evidence of Ministers considering financial relief can be found in interviews on ONE NEWS with Associate Revenue Minister Peter Dunn in July and with Building and Housing Minister Hon Maurice Williamson last week. The comments made by Hon Williamson are particularly pleasing, as Property Council has been pushing for recognition and action on this issue since February 2012 in a series of meetings with officials from the Department of Building and Housing and the newly formed Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).
The latest word from the Beehive is that officials are peer reviewing papers on the viability of providing some form of tax relief for strengthening. This is positive news. Our next steps will be to continue meeting with Ministers to push our message home, ensuring it gets traction and making sure any talk is followed through with.
With the weight of our membership behind us, we are sure to get movement on this issue. Now more than ever, your support is essential. Thank you for your commitment to us so far.
Connal Townsend
Chief Executive

[Davo36]

Yes this is good news indeed.

It will be interesting to see what if anything they do.

[eri]

the responsibility for the deaths of the 115 people who died in the CTV (1986) pancake collapse, during a 6.5 quake in 2010

seems squarely placed on the building's designer/s

who had never built anything over 2 floors before and tried a bit of a cheap experiment...

which, the council wasn't qualified to inspect...

CTV never met code and attempts to get it to code before the 1st quake, and inspect it after, were not successful

because it seems no one understood how this cheap 1-off design would respond to a long, slow shake

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTV_Building

now, going forward

how many more buildings like this are there in nz?

if we can't trust stuff built in 1986, possibly in the hundreds...

is a 10 story building from 1920 likely to be any stronger?

presumably it would cost $50,000 - $100,000? to even have suitably qualified engineers put a half accurate guess down on paper...

not much people can do if they currently own all or part of an old multi-story building but wait for the letter from council

however for anyone thinking of buying into such a building

at a guess it's going to take 10 long years for council engineers to get a grip on the problem

so

just don't go there

[eri]

meanwhile in japan

they have decided that the M9 quake last year

has disturbed - cracked the magma chamber 15km below fuji

and the raised the risk of it's first eruption for 300 years

so north-islanders take note of the increased activity at white island and the completely unexpected eruption at tongariro

where magma is also rising

http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/7453567/Magma-bubbles-higher-in-Mt-Tongariro

ie insurance costs will continue to outstrip inflation

[Tan]

The guys I work with over here in Perth laugh and say there can't be much of NZ left after the earthquakes and volcanos. They snigger that Kiwis are tough because I called the volcano a geyser! I mentioned it wasn't as bad as if Auckland had erupted.
I replied that when everyone has left and it has all reverted to bush I will go back.

These are nice guys (really) with a lot of experience under their belts, but the overseas perception is that NZ is small & being attacked from all angles by natural disasters. The reinsurers may have a similar idea, hence all the red tape - would you insure NZ if you were overseas & had choices?

[eri]

the overseas perception of australia

is it's too large, too dry, with not enough water and too many fires

plus it's full of animals that will attack you from every angle...

the issues always look worse from a distance

and tolerable close up;o)

[Davo36]

Bureaucrats More Destructive than Quakes

A very very commonsense article in the Herald this morning:

Bureaucrats more destructive than quakes

By Brian Rudman 6:10 AM Wednesday Feb 6, 2013


In the aftermath of the Christchurch calamity, it's understandable that the commissioners and the Government want to be seen to be doing something. Photo / Supplied


It's time for a dose of fatalism and some common sense when it comes to dealing with earthquake-prone buildings across New Zealand in the wake of the Christchurch quakes.
If we follow the recommendations of the royal commission, as translated by a Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) consultation paper, we risk losing more of our built heritage than from anything Mother Nature could throw at us.
The report fingers 15,000 to 25,000 suspect buildings, representing 8-13 per cent of all non-residential and multi-unit, multi-storey residential buildings, and proposes they be strengthened or demolished compulsorily, if a 15-year deadline is not met.
The royal commission went further, itchy to target individual homes as well. As someone whose house is in the prime target group - brick and unreinforced and elderly - it's a relief to see my little pile seems to be off the bureaucrats' horizon, for now at least.
In the aftermath of the Christchurch calamity, it's understandable that the commissioners and the Government want to be seen to be doing something.


But here, in unshaky Auckland, the unintended consequences are already coming to light. Just around the corner from me, the storybook, 130-year-old St Stephen's Presbyterian Church in Ponsonby seems doomed. This wooden Historic Places Trust-listed landmark needs in excess of $500,000 of earthquake-strengthening, according to the experts brought in to survey the church's buildings nationwide. It has a score of less than 29 per cent of the current earthquake standards for new buildings and the Building Act 2004 requires this be brought up to 34 per cent.

Rest of Article

I just can't say enough about this, what a totally sensible piece of journalism for a change. Talk about calling it like it is!

We have become this hidebound country. Unable to do anything and bogged down in red tape and costs because the bureaucrats have taken control.

[eri]

fully agree

[kapitibeanman]

The old churches are sitting ducks, but perhaps it doesn't matter too much because they are
empty so much of the time.

How about a very small levy every time someone enters an iffy building, proceeds to trust for upgrading.
Quite easy as these mobile phone cash transfers become more popular.
A really bad building would levy higher, and the more people at risk, the quicker the funds would
grow to enable upgrading. Levy too high, and the building would lose value as people avoided it.
If people shun the building, surely it is useless and needs to come down. If the upgrading not done
inside say 25 years, the accumulated levies would be forfeited, maybe distributed to other nearby buildings.
Building owner to retain full value of the improvements. Tax free would be nice.

I know someone will tell me what's wrong with that. Davo? Too much bureaucracy?

[eri]

with the time scale that things like quakes are on

north of hamilton should probably be given 100 years to strengthen their buildings or knock them down without heritage obstacles

same for south of timaru

in between, and west coast, may need to haggle...

[willkiwi]

Just an update on my earlier posts, my IEP was 21%, the tenant's IEP was 28% and the final result after the detailed seismic assessment was 70%NBS. The initial IEP cost me over $2k and the detailed assessment will have cost around $8k. In my view, IEP reports can be a waste of time and money. In some cases, depending on factors such as the age of the building, construction etc, it would be worthwhile proceeding directly to the detailed assessment.

[kapitibeanman]

Our high-rise (Wellington) has had a detailed engineer's assessment.
It seems we are too strong, and a vertical cut the height of the building has been
recommended, to cut all the horizontal reinforcing on the stairwell wall. This is to enable the wall to
move in two sections during a quake, and not drop chunks of concrete on the stairs.
Our recently installed 2nd stairway (done at Council insistence), and our old stairway,
are also too rigid, and we have to install sliders on each landing to impart flexibility.
We have also been told we are in line for "pounding" against our neighbour, but no
solution suggested. Our rating was in the high 70's, now revised below 34% as
engineering theories change and develop.
Looking along Lambton Quay, I wonder if any structures will be considered safe from
pounding and grinding.

[gavinc]

Can someone tell me what the percentage figures actually mean? i.e. does 33% of NBS mean that the building will be considered safe in a magnitude 3 earthquake, but not magnitude ? lets say 4 earthquake (my understanding is that the Richter scale is logarithmic)

[Davo36]

Its even trickier than that...

I went to a meeting in Auckland on this, at the council chambers (I hate going into their buildings, I get all defensive..).

The NBS is different for different cities/areas. So for instance the new building standards in Wellington are way higher than Auckland. The NBS is even different for the type of building, so for instance schools, hospitals etc. have to be at a higher standard.

So there are many NBS regulations in NZ - which reflect the likely magnitude and type of earthquake new buildings are built to withstand.

But the real biggy is that an earthquake could happen tomorrow or in 4000 years time. No one knows and it can't be predicted. So do you do nothing? Or spend a fortune upgrading heaps of buildings that may never ever see and earthquake?

So it's all about risk and cost. The less risk you are prepared to take, the more cost is involved, and that is exponential too. So yes you could design a building to meet all the codes etc. but a quake .2 above what they were designed for would knock them all down.

[Davo36]

Just an update on my earlier posts, my IEP was 21%, the tenant's IEP was 28% and the final result after the detailed seismic assessment was 70%NBS. The initial IEP cost me over $2k and the detailed assessment will have cost around $8k. In my view, IEP reports can be a waste of time and money. In some cases, depending on factors such as the age of the building, construction etc, it would be worthwhile proceeding directly to the detailed assessment.

Thanks for the update, so many people don't follow up with what happened on these forums.

Well you'd have to be happy with that but I guess a better IEP would have been good!