The earthquake rating of the Office of Internal Revenue decreased by at least 34 percent

Astron Center on Featherstone Street Photo / Mark Mitchell

Internal Revenue guidance says Wellington’s office seismic rating has fallen by at least 34 percent.

Yesterday, the government department issued a statement advising all of its 1,000 employees at the Astron Center that they had been sent home due to the results of the new detailed seismic assessment.

The evaluation was conducted when Inland Revenue was looking to renew the lease on the building located on Featherstone Street.

It revealed that Wellington’s largest single office building has a lower New Building Rating (NBS) than previously thought.

Inland Revenue has so far declined to identify the new rating.

However, Inland Revenue’s guidelines for employees to evacuate any site are marked as less than 34 percent of the NBS, which is the definition of an earthquake-prone building.

If a site is between 34 and 66 percent of NBS, the guidelines advise employees that they can occupy the building with a plan to repair the site to a rating above 67 percent.

A spokesperson for Inland Revenue said yesterday that employees will work from home until a remedial plan is in place to bring the building up to standard.

While these are Inland Revenue guidelines, under national policy, even buildings with a rating below 34 percent can still be occupied within the time frame, owners are required to strengthen them.

Astron Center was previously announced as 100 percent of NBS.

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The Civil Aviation Authority, which also operates the building and received a copy of the new seismic assessment, reported that the area of ​​concern was local.

A CAA spokesperson said the core structure is still 100 per cent above NBS.

A building’s NBS rating is determined by the weakest part of the building, so even if the problem is localized, it can still affect the site’s overall score.

Wellington City Council acts as the regulator for earthquake-prone building codes in the capital.

Wellington City Council Chairman, Mike Mendonca. The attached photo

Mike Mendonca, chief resilience officer, confirmed that the board requested a copy of Astron’s detailed seismic assessment.

He said the council was monitoring the situation attentively and was in contact with the building owner and tenants.

In March this year, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment published a preliminary assessment of the new earthquake-prone National Building System, which was introduced in 2017.

The report said the majority of the market and the public had record seismic expectations well above NBS’ minimum policy requirement of 34 percent.

This minimum standard is intended to mitigate life safety risks in the event of a moderate earthquake, rather than reflecting current best engineering practices or market expectations.

The minimum market standard for building resilience is generally between 67 and 80 percent of NBS.

This indicates a shift from life safety to building resilience and an overall lower tolerance for earthquake-related hazards, the report said.

“Several public buildings were subsequently reassessed and closed in Wellington, whether or not they met the legal definition of ‘earthquake-prone’, including Wellington Central Library and the access ferry terminal,” the report said.

Statistics House, now demolished. Photo/Mark Mitchell

Advice relied on to close the Central Library was based on guidelines issued after two floors of the Statistics House partially collapsed in the 7.8-magnitude Kaikoura earthquake in 2016.

These guidelines are still being tested, so they are not official in the rulebook and cannot be used to determine the NBS rating, but they do reflect the latest engineering ideas.

This technically means the library has an NBS rating of 60 percent and is nowhere near earthquake-prone, but hypothetical rates of 15 percent.

Inland Revenue declined to answer whether Astron’s recent detailed seismic assessment took these guidelines, known as the yellow chapter, into account.

However, the Astron Center was one of about 80 buildings that underwent a targeted damage assessment in the months following the Kaikoura earthquake.

The city council has been given special powers to order building owners to make these assessments based on initial advice from a team of experts investigating damage to the Census House.

Properties identified as needing urgent checks have properties that include four to 15 storeys, reinforced concrete structures, precast floors, and are built on soft soils.

Inland Revenue’s 2017 annual report revealed that the building she rented in Napier re-rated the NBS indicative rating by 15 percent after being evaluated against yellow chapter guidelines.

This was after the Napier City Council voluntarily conducted an audit of their buildings.

Upon learning of the Napier Building classification, we immediately evacuated our staff, along with vital records and equipment, on June 21, 2017.

“Employees worked from home until we started using a small space provided to us by the Ministry of Social Development in August 2017,” the report said.

Asteron Center owner Mark Dunajtschik said he had no comment on the building’s most recent detailed seismic assessment and referred questions to Inland Revenue.

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