Earthquake-prone buildings
What’s Waipā doing about the Earthquake prone building laws?
The Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Act 2016 came into force on 1 July 2017.
The new system ensures the way our buildings are managed for future earthquakes is consistent across the country, and provides more information for people using buildings, such as notices on earthquake-prone buildings and a public register. Owners of earthquake-prone buildings will be required to take action within certain timeframes depending on the seismic risk area in which their buildings are located. Affected owners will be contacted by Council.
Waipā district has been categorised as a medium seismic risk area. This means council must identify potentially earthquake-prone buildings within ten years, and building owners must strengthen or demolish earthquake-prone buildings within 25 years from the date the notice is issued.
Which buildings are prioritised?
Under the new system earthquake-prone buildings that are a high risk to people’s lives or critical to recovery in an emergency are considered ‘priority buildings’. Priority buildings must be identified and remediated in half the time allowed for other earthquake-prone buildings, to reduce the risks to people’s lives faster.
This means Council must identify potentially earthquake-prone priority buildings in Waipā within 5 years, and building owners must strengthen or demolish earthquake-prone priority buildings within 12.5 years from the date the earthquake-prone building notice is issued.
What’s happening now?
We’re is working to determine whether there are any potentially earthquake-prone buildings in Waipā using the Earthquake-prone Building Methodology.
Affected building owners will be notified that their buildings are potentially earthquake-prone. Owners of potentially earthquake-prone buildings have 12 months to provide an engineering assessment.
Once this assessment is received, Council will determine if the building is classified as earthquake prone, and notify the building owner of its decision.
More information about the new system can be found at: MBIE - Managing earthquake-prone buildings.
