Mayor warns over quake-code cost

Getting it right is a current issue, says Napier Mayor Bill Dalton. Photo / File

While new changes to the way earthquake-prone buildings are assessed would increase safety they would not be without a cost - which Napier Mayor Bill Dalton said many individual owners and councils would find difficult to afford.

Napier, along with Wellington, Gisborne, Nelson and Palmerston North, will be affected by the bill, which has gone into select committee and which targets masonry on facades, parapets and verandas of older buildings.

The affected structural areas will have to be assessed and upgraded in half the original time given over to strengthening.

The Government began planning the changes to the structural rules for earthquake-prone buildings in the wake of intense lobbying, led by Christchurch woman Ann Brower, who was the sole survivor on a bus which was crushed by falling masonry during the February 2011 earthquake.

Wigram MP Megan Woods described the bill sent to the select committee as vastly different from the one which had emerged from the initial process, as those involved realised how important it was "to get it right".

Getting it right was something Mr Dalton said was a current issue when it came to assessing prone buildings, and he was not overly impressed by the latest tough addition to the rules. He said there were wild variations as to what the current safety code of a building was.

"I know of one building in Hawke's Bay that came out at something like 20 per cent of current code, and the third engineer said it was 120 per cent of current code. So if we are going to fast-track things, we need to know what we are fast tracking."

With the city among the centres required to speed up work on earthquake-prone buildings, Mr Dalton said cost would become a major issue.

"There's no way in the world that the councils around the country can afford it," he said, adding individual owners would be in the same financial position.