Wellington's Bowen House earthquake risk report imminent

Parliament Buildings, from left, Bowen House, the Beehive and Parliament House. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Parliamentary Services expects to have a report into the seismic status of Bowen House back by the end of next week.

In May, it was revealed engineers had been engaged to undertake a seismic assessment of the building, which is home to party leaders, MPs and parliamentary support staff.

The timeline for the full assessment of Bowen House has taken slightly longer than the estimated three months because the building owner extended its scope.

The report will also include how to fix any problems with the building and the cost.

As part of the assessment, the building is under the scrutiny of new guidelines being proposed by MBIE after two floors of Statistics House partially collapsed in the Kaikoura Earthquake.

The guidelines around precast concrete floor systems are not yet part of legislation and cannot be used to determine whether a building is earthquake prone.

Statistics House was badly damaged in the Kaikoura earthquake. Photo / Mark Mitchell

But Wellington City Council's chief executive Kevin Lavery still made the swift decision to close the central library after it was assessed under those guidelines, as more than 3000 people visit the building daily.

Corporate Services deputy chief executive Mitchell Knight said he planned to communicate the contents of the report into Bowen House as quickly as possible.

"I'm not putting this in the drawer for a few weeks, I am literally clearing my diary for the 48 hours following my receipt of this report.

"As soon as I get this report I will be calling all of the chief executives into a room to discuss it, I'll also want representatives from the engineers, both Beca and our engineers who do peer reviews of these reports, and also MBIE," he said.

Parliamentary Services, the lead tenant at Bowen House, planned on getting a written commitment to bring the building close to 100 per cent of the New Building Standard, Knight said.

Bowen House and the central library are among the first buildings to undertake voluntary assessments against the new guidelines for precast concrete floors.

The guidelines could become mandatory after MBIE does its homework, effectively trialling them, for what's expected to be a couple of years.

In the background, Wellington City Council is putting a fine tooth comb through its files, making a list of buildings in the CBD which may pose similar seismic concerns as the central library and Bowen House.