'No blame' for Opera House woes

Consultant Harry O'Rourke and Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule outside the Opera House. Photo / Glenn Taylor

An independent report into the Hawke's Bay Opera House's structural problems has found fault with some aspects of the Hastings District Council's handling of a $13.6 million upgrade of the facility and adjacent buildings.

But the report says no one can be blamed for problems that have left the buildings closed and requiring several million dollars more to fix.

The council commissioned former Waitakere City Council chief executive Harry O'Rourke and structural engineer Win Clark to investigate events leading up to the March closure of the historic building for safety reasons.

The report said $13.6 million was spent restoring the Opera House and adjacent Municipal building between 1997 and 2008 - including work on seismic strengthening - but an engineering assessment in March concluded it remained prone to earthquakes.

Replacement cost of the buildings is estimated at $26 million and a valuation firm has recommended the council write-down the value of the property on its books by 50 per cent - from about $12 million to $6 million.

The O'Rourke/Clark report, released by the council yesterday, says factors including changed approaches to building and design standards before and after the Christchurch earthquake, and advances in construction modelling technology, were among the reasons for the surprise finding this year that the facility was not up to earthquake code.

"From a consideration of common practice in the late 1990s to mid-2000s, the main thrust of the development project was acceptable, with the functional outcome for the buildings significantly enhanced," the report said.

"The areas where a broader perspective may have identified particular risks were very technical. This was at a time when building assessment knowledge and practice was developing from a national and international perspective."

The report concluded that when it came to pointing the finger of blame "there is little justification for the council to pursue damages at this time, as the level of negligence is considered to be minor and difficult to prove after a period of nearly 10 years".

However, it said while the overall project was "managed to an 'at the time' satisfactory outcome, there could have been further steps taken by the council" - including "more questioning and probing" of engineers' comments that significant structural improvements could be made in certain areas of the building. The handover of the project from the council to the Hastings Tourism Facilities Trust "could have been overseen with more rigour," the report said. The trust and the council also "could have ensured better reporting and communications during the period when the HTFT was responsible for the project".

Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule said yesterday the council followed "normal practice of the day" in terms of the engineering advice it had obtained, but practices had changed since the Christchurch earthquakes.

"What we did at the time is what has always been done but because of the earthquake stuff you would absolutely test that now."

Mr Yule said the council commissioned the report because ratepayers deserved an answer to the question of how the problem had arisen and who was responsible.

"If we had found some negligence of significance, that would have started a whole train of thought around damages and things, but we haven't found that," Mr Yule said.

"Following Christchurch there is now a far better understanding and computerised modelling technology available for non-reinforced masonry buildings that was not available then," he said.

"I doubt there has been any project undertaken by any local authority in this region, though, that would have had these things in place, even today. So hindsight is a wonderful thing, but at the time - and even more recently - we wouldn't have used these types of technologies."