Wednesday, Mar 28, 2018
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THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF MID CANTERBURY
❃ 155 BUILDINGS ❃ 12 YEARS TO COMPLETE ❃ CO-OPERATION NEEDED
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D-Day’s coming for old buildings BY SUE NEWMAN
SUE.N@THEGUARDIAN.CO.NZ
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Ashburton is about to hop on a CBD merry-go-round as businesses seek to escape earthquake prone buildings and landlords ponder the cost of reinvesting in real estate that may not generate a decent return. Already there are signs that retailers are snapping up vacant, modern buildings and vacating those that are known to be earthquake prone. Next month placards will be placed on the exterior of 155 buildings around Ashburton (most in the CDB), making it clear they have been assessed as earthquake prone and that strengthening
work or demolition must be completed within 12 years. Those buildings will be listed on a national, public access register. Among those 155 buildings are 60 where owners have yet to provide the council with an engineering assessment. These will need to be provided within 12 months. Regardless of the final number, Ashburton District Council building services manager Michael Wong said, building owners will be forced to make some tough and financially difficult decisions. Most of those buildings would need to be strengthened or demolished within 12 years.
Wong is also concerned the placards will unleash a wave of community concern about building safety, but said the reality is that nothing has changed. “It’s no worse than it was before they got a placard, but now people will know it’s earthquake prone, they may say ‘can I go safely into that building’,” he said. The public needed to be assured that if the council had a problem with a building they believed was below 34 per cent of the code, it would have been red stickered, he said.
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