File ref: IRC-5273
31 August 2023
Frank
[FYI request #23090 email]
Kia ora Frank
ECC/EOC Seismic Resilience
Thank you for your request made under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings
Act 1987 (the Act), received 2 August 2023. You requested the fol owing information:
Could you please confirm the type of assessment and date completed for the Wel ington building
identified as 80%NBS?
Wel ington City Council has
declined your request for information.
The information you have requested has not been provided under section 17 (e) of The Act
because (the document al eged to contain the information requested does not exist or, despite
reasonable efforts to locate it, cannot be found:).
We do not have a copy of an assessment on file.
The building at 2 Turnbull St which is also used as WCC’s Emergency Operations Centre was
originally designed to NZS 4203:1992 as a Category 1 (high importance) building due to its post-
disaster importance; this would correlate to an importance level 4 building in the latest code (NZS
1170.0:2002) and was built to code at that time.
The building fal s outside of the criteria for assessment under the current legislation, therefore
Council does not have an assessment for this building on file. In saying this, the building was
constructed in 1995 and at the time met the assessment criteria due to it being a new build. A
recent Building Information Model (BIM) created in 2020 for 2 Turnbull St referenced an 80% NBS
figure. A disclaimer on the Building Information Model states that the sources used to create the
model include Archival Plans, PDF or CAD as-built drawings, photos and simple site measures,
Google Street view images and BIM models from consultants used in the creation of their
construction documents.
The legislation requires the assessment of:
• Non-residential buildings
• Residential buildings that are two or more storeys and three or more units and
• Residential buildings that are two or more storeys and used as a hostel, boarding house or
other specialised accommodation,
and if they are:
• Constructed of unreinforced masonry or
• Three or more storeys with an original construction date prior to 1976 or
• One or two storey buildings with an original construction date prior to 1935 or
• Suspected of being earthquake prone by Council for a particular reason
Buildings fitting these criteria which are built completely of timber, or that have been
strengthened to at least 34% of NZS:1170 do not require assessment, but buildings strengthened
to earlier codes (prior to December 2008) will require assessment. Other specific exclusions
include farm buildings, retaining wal s, fences, certain monuments, wharves, bridges, tunnels and
storage tanks.
In saying this, it is anticipated that 2 Turnbull St wil have an NBS assessment conducted in the
next 12 months as part of the continuous review of Council infrastructure. We are in the process
of setting up a programme of seismic assessments and in doing this have used MBIEs importance
level to prioritise buildings, we identified the WREMO building as IL4 which is High Priority.
Right of review
If you are not satisfied with the Council’s response, you may request the Office of the Ombudsman
to investigate the Council’s decision. Further information is available on the Ombudsman website,
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz.
Please note, we may proactively release our response to your request with your personal
information removed.
Thank you again for your request, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Kind regards
Amber Smith
Senior Advisor Official Information
Wellington City Council | 2 of 2
