Earthquake prone buildings

New Zealand has a relatively high earthquake risk so it is important for safety reasons that buildings are built or upgraded to be safe in an earthquake.

Introduction

The Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Act 2016 came into effect on 1 July 2017, amending the Building Act 2004. This overrides and replaces the earthquake-prone provisions of Councils’ former Earthquake-prone, Dangerous and Insanitary Building Policy 2006.

An overview and detail of the new regime are available on the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment’s Building Performance website(external link).

The council adopted this policy in March 2019.

Tasman District is in both a high and medium seismic risk area, according to the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Act 2016.

The high seismic risk area is south of Wakefield, Tapawera and includes Murchison, St Arnaud, Belgrove, Motupiko, and Kohatu. The medium seismic risk area includes Wakefield, Tapawera, and all points north.

Download a map of seismic risk areas

Earthquake Prone Building Areas.pdf (pdf 2.2 MB)

The process

We're at the early stages of this process, but over time we will write to affected building owners. Once buildings are identified they are added to the national register. View the Earthquake Prone Building Register(external link) The register contains earthquake-prone buildings in the Tasman District and throughout New Zealand.

Timeframes

The Council has set timeframes to identify buildings as either potentially earthquake-prone or not.  Likewise, building owners have a set time to carry our seismic strengthening work.

The timeframes are set out in this table:

Seismic risk Council to identify buildings by Owner to do seismic remediation within
Category  Priority buildings  Other buildings  Priority buildings  Other buildings
High risk 1 January 2020 1 July 2022 7.5 years 15 years
Medium risk 1 July 2022 1 July 2027 12.5 years 25 years
Priority buildings

If a building failure would have a significant impact on public safety or critical transport routes, it may be considered a priority building.

For example, hospitals, emergency services, civil defence, or education buildings may be critical to recovery in an emergency or natural disaster. Other earthquake-prone buildings may be priority buildings due to their location and the potential impact of their failure in an earthquake on critical transport routes.

Heritage buildings

You can visit the Heritage EQUIP(external link) website for a range of useful seismic upgrade project guidance. You can find out more about the Council funding available for heritage buildings here on our website 

Contact us

If you have questions or want more information, email EQB@tasman.govt.nz

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