Source: Radio New Zealand
The Octagon in Dunedin. RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
Heritage advocates are warning shifting Dunedin to a higher seismic zone will damage the city’s economy and put its iconic heritage buildings at risk.
Under the proposed new earthquake prone buildings bill, Coastal Otago – including Dunedin – will shift from a low to a medium seismic risk area.
But on Thursday, the Transport and Infrastructure Select Committee was warned of the harm this could do to a city known for its historical architecture.
The bill’s aim was to target buildings that posed the greatest risk to life in medium to high risk zones, including concrete buildings three storeys or higher, and those constructed with unreinforced masonry.
Southern Heritage Trust trustee Jo Galer told the committee that Dunedin’s ornate heritage buildings were a big drawcard for travellers.
But she said the city’s iconic buildings were already in the firing line – a pre-1900 church and a 1820s landmark home near the Octagon were recent casualties.
The promise of common sense changes to the seismic rules was welcome, but she said they had been left bitterly disappointed.
“The legislation risks unintentionally accelerating the loss of the very buildings that give Dunedin its character,” she said.
“Instead of making it easier to repurpose and restore buildings, developers and people in the business of knocking down buildings for carparks will have a field day.”
Southern Heritage Trust trustee Jo Galer. Supplied
Building in Auckland, along with Northland and the Chatham Islands, would be removed from the system entirely as they were deemed as lower seismic risk areas.
If Dunedin remained at a low seismic risk, Galer said it could be a lifeline for heritage buildings – if there were cost effective solutions offered.
Instead, she told committee chairperson Andy Foster that the new rules would make things worse.
“It’s tough enough and the costs are already sky high and they’re going to get even worse and I can not see how building owners can maintain their buildings in that environment, in that legislative environment. It’s just wrong for Dunedin.”
The bill said the shift from low to medium zone reflected the greater understanding of seismic hazard in that area.
That meant about 150 earthquake-prone buildings would remain in the system and more could be identified.
But councillor Russell Lund told the committee that figure was actually much higher and it was one of several flaws in the reports used as the foundation for the bill that made him question why Dunedin’s risk level was being increased.
“Dunedin has 323 earthquake prone buildings. There is a total of 6500 buildings that are going to be classified and there is still 3700 yet to be classified
He was one of six councillors calling for Dunedin and coastal Otago to remain a low-risk seismic zone, saying a change would pose a real economic risk to businesses and property owners.
The shift to a higher risk zone would take a toll on Dunedin, he said.
“Dunedin council has confirmed it’s unknown how many three level unreinforced masonry buildings there are in Dunedin. But they have confirmed that two levels plus a basement will be considered a three-level building and this is a critical point,” Lund said.
“Because under the new legislation, a three level unreinforced masonry building must have a full retrofit. There’s no partial or just facade securing, it’s full.”
Tourism contributed roughly $379 million to the city’s GDP last year and the city relied on its heritage look and feel to attract visitors, he said.
Dunedin already had many under-utilised heritage buildings due to the cost of remediation and this bill was expected to add even further cost and complexity, Lund said.
“As a heritage building owner and building contractor, I understand this intimately. It’s expensive and risky to do strengthening. Old buildings are frustrating. They’re not plumb, level or square. There’s often rot and decay uncovered during the work.
“They consume vast amounts of labour hours and supervision time. I have the scars and the job cost to prove it.”
They also advocated for Ōamaru and its wealth of heritage buildings to be exempted, saying the lower risk town would face significant costs because it was above the proposed small town population threshold of 10,000.
Structural engineer and heritage building developer Stephen Macknight said Dunedin has New Zealand’s best collection of heritage buildings.
“It’s a point of difference compared to other places. We didn’t have in the 80s all our heritage knocked down like many of the cities around the country, and also we had the gold rush at a time when they were building really significant heritage structures,” he said.
Dunedin was lucky to not have more demolition under the current rules as the main streets in some smaller towns had been decimated when earthquake prone buildings were left empty as it was too costly to strengthen them and it viewed as easier to bowl them over instead, he said.
He was left with questions over the proposed rules, and said what the city needed was more certainty.
“Developers who are trying to juggle money and borrow money, and banks and insurance companies, with all this doubt out there it makes it a lot harder to do,” he said.
“Everyone needs a bit of certainty so all these changes or the talk about medium (seismic zone) and so on is just creating a little bit more fear in people and making the easier option to build new rather than work on redeveloping.”
It was not necessarily a bad thing for buildings to be empty for a period, he said.
“It saved a lot of buildings in Dunedin. A lot of Ōamaru just wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for this kind of pause and wait so if we rush into anything under legislation, we lose things which in the future might be seen as really valuable and able to be saved.”
It was important to make sure the new rules were not used to take the easy option of demolition rather than protecting heritage, Macknight said.
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