Darryl August: Institute of Building Surveyors President on the new earthquake-prone building standards

Some building owners may decide it's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to new earthquake standards.  

The Government's eased regulations which will see Auckland, Northland, and the Chatham Islands removed from the regime. 

Institute of Building Surveyors President Darryl August says while an earthquake isn't likely in Auckland, it could cause a lot of damage if it did happen.  

He told Ryan Bridge even people in low-risk areas like Auckland should still have a look at their building.  

August says there's nothing to stop people doing the repairs even if they aren't legally required. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The earthquake changes, thousands of buildings will no longer be
classified as high risk. Only three story plus concrete buildings
all those with unreinforced masonry like brick walls will now
require full upgrades. And he's get on an Institute of
Building Survey as President Daryl august with me this morning, Darreel.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Good morning, Good morning, Ran. How are you good?

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Good? Thank you. Thoughts on this.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Look at obviously a positive move for a lot of
owners in New Zealand that crippled with the fact that
they're going to have to spend a lot of money
where we're going to have to spend a lot of
money on their buildings to upgrade them. However, we do
have some concerns around just making sure that we don't
go too far and making sure that you know the
right measures are in place. Still, the removal of the

(00:48):
need to look at other building elements such as fire
and accessibility does concern us somewhat, and I think when
I read through the media release it does confused me
slightly where it says that owners won't need to address
those items, but then it also says that the territorial
authority will still need to check those items, So the

(01:11):
two don't really match at the moment, but obviously the
devils in the detail. When we see more, we'll be
able to tell what the consequences are of those changes.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
So you're saying it's not necessarily the earthquake stuff, but
it's what fire escapes and wheelchair ramps and stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Well. Look, accessibility is obviously a concern for people who
require accessibility means to enter a building, but in terms
of fire, that's a pretty critical safety item within a building,
fire performance alarms and passivefire requirements. So generally with a

(01:50):
seismic upgrade to a building, there would be other building
elements that do require remediation as well, and that's quite common.
So what the government's looking to do here is removed
the need to upgrade those systems. I'm not sure exactly
how much detail there is at the moment on what

(02:11):
that all looks like, but a standard approach of a
mediation of assignment building or building assitemic issues would be
that you know, a fire engineer would be involved in
do it gap analysis report of the building and be
able to tell the owners how it complies currently with
the building code and what it may need to do
to comply with any other provisions of the Building Code.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Now, all the changes that they have made on earthquakes,
where does that put us in terms of global rankings?
You know, how safe would the buildings be here and
relative to earth great risk versus other places.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Look, I wouldn't be able to say. I don't work internationally,
so you know my expertise is in New Zealand. What
I would say is that I do have some concern
about the removal of seismic upgrade to buildings and low
risk areas. I suppose I did hear something on your
news bulletin earlier today where somebody was talking about if

(03:13):
you remove those requirements in low risk areas, what happens
if something happened similar to what happened in Australia a
few years ago in a low risk area where it
earthquake did it? And so when we look at Auckland,
and I'm not trying to scaremonger here, but if something
did happen in Auckland, that could significantly cripple our country.

(03:34):
So I think building owners need to be cognizant of
the changes and if they feel that there are things
that need to be done to their building. There is
nothing stopping them doing work to their building if they
are concerned about it.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Darrell, appreciate your time. Darryl August, who's with the New
Zealand Institute of Building Survey as their president.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
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