Wellington Railway Station stoush - division over earthquake-prone status

Wellington City Council insists the capital's central railway station is earthquake prone and remains at just 20 per cent of the New Building Standard. Photo / File

KiwiRail decided to take matters into its own hands in a stoush with Wellington City Council over the seismic status of the capital's central railway station.

The council insists the building is earthquake prone and remains at just 20 per cent of the New Building Standard (NBS).

But KiwiRail has challenged that in the course of the dispute and, based on advice from independent engineers, went as far as to take Earthquake-Prone Building [EPB] signs down at the station.

The building was deemed earthquake prone in March 2014, according to Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment records.

Work was undertaken to strengthen the building in the early 2000s, with further work in 2015 after the 2013 Seddon earthquake. Additional work was also undertaken following the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake.

Since then there has been toing and froing about the status of the building, council chief resilience officer Mike Mendonça said.

"It's a large, complex building and while that work reduced the vulnerabilities of some parts of the building there are about five aspects of the building where we require more work to be done," he said.

The council maintains KiwiRail has never provided evidence the building is no longer earthquake prone.

"I need to be clear, the building is and always has been earthquake prone," Mendonça said.

But KiwiRail Capital Projects & Asset Development Chief Operating Officer David Gordon said on completion of the strengthening work they received advice from independent engineers the building was not earthquake prone.

It put the building at 30 per cent to 40 per cent of the New Building Standard. This rating also took into consideration the building's increased performance requirements because of the number of people congregating under its roof.

Despite failing to get Wellington City Council to agree with this assessment, KiwiRail took down EPB signs at the station.

In a twist of events, KiwiRail issued a press release today announcing the building was undergoing a seismic reassessment and was being considered earthquake prone in the interim.

It said KiwiRail was today posting Earthquake Prone Building notices at the station following a change in technical guidelines for Engineering Assessments.

Earthquake-Prone Building notices have been posted around Wellington Railway Station. Photo / Mark Mitchell

There was no mention in the press release of building's earthquake-prone status dating back to 2014.

The notices put up today are a result of changes to the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Act which came into force in 2017.

As a regulator, Wellington City Council has until the end of this year to reissue notices in order to be consistent with the new legislation.

That's why the notices are dated August 20, 2019, even though the building has been earthquake prone since 2014.

Mendonça acknowledged there were not always EPB notices displayed at the railway station when they should have been.

"The council has some discretion over whether or not it enforces in areas like this and in this case the notices are now fixed so it seems to us it wouldn't be a good use of our efforts".

Gordon said as a result of the new legislation, KiwiRail was now unable to confirm the exact status of the building.

"Accordingly, we feel it is prudent to display the signs as provided by WCC. We will not dispute the 20 per cent until further assessment is complete and we can say what percentage of NBS the site is with some certainty.

"We now acknowledge the best way to progress with Council is to complete a new assessment for the site."