Half of buildings in review cleared or excluded

  • Maurice Williamson
Building and Construction

Building and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson today announced that 111 buildings have been cleared and a further 62 excluded in the review into buildings with non-ductile columns.

The review being led by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment seeks to establish if there are any buildings with similar design flaws to the Canterbury Television Building, which collapsed in the February 22nd 2011 earthquake and killed 115 people.

“Half of the 342 buildings involved in the review have now either been cleared or excluded. Two North Island buildings have been vacated due to a number of issues. One building in Christchurch has been upgraded and its structural issues resolved,” Mr Williamson says.

Overview:

  • In Auckland, 79 buildings have been assessed by engineers and cleared.
  • In Wellington, 18 buildings assessed and cleared
  • In other areas (excluding Christchurch) 13 buildings have been assessed and cleared.
  • In Christchurch, 13 buildings were originally in scope but 12 have now been deemed out of scope because they have been demolished, acquired for demolition or did not have non-ductile columns. The one building in scope has been upgraded and its previous structural issues resolved. That building is now deemed to be cleared.
  • A total of 62 buildings (including the 12 Christchurch buildings) have been ruled out of scope because they don’t meet the review criteria - they either didn’t have non-ductile columns, weren’t consented in the timeframe non-ductile columns were allowed, were under three storeys, have been demolished or will be demolished
  • Two North Island buildings have been vacated due to a number of issues.

“I’m advised there are a further 128 building engineering assessments booked and that councils are following up with the remaining 39 building owners to check when assessments are to be done.

“The two building owners in Auckland who had refused to get an engineering assessment have now changed their minds. This is very pleasing as the review is being done for reasons of public safety,” Maurice Williamson says.

Since the August update the total number of buildings included in the review has gone up by four, to 342. The increase results from the rechecking of information on buildings that were incorrectly deemed not part of the review.

“I need to stress that just because a building has non-ductile columns it does not mean it us unsafe. If such buildings are balanced out by other design features they pose no greater danger than other buildings. It’s important to reiterate the CTV building failed catastrophically due to many more issues than just non-ductile columns, including a flawed design.

“As I said last month, given the review is on-going it would be inappropriate for details of the buildings involved, especially those that have been