Description

Engineering design standards and our understanding of earthquakes have advanced over time, in particular as a result of learnings from the 2011 Canterbury and 2016 Kaikōura earthquakes. Consequently, many older buildings do not meet the standards required of new buildings.

In light of this, the Building Performance team from the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) has today released a new Seismic Risk guidance document.

This guidance helps building users, tenants and owners to understand seismic assessments of their buildings and make risk-informed decisions about continued occupancy of these buildings when they have a low seismic rating.

The guidance also provides the tools and language for engineers and their clients to discuss seismic assessments and what these mean for building performance in an earthquake.

Scope

The document provides guidance on three key areas:

• Part A provides background material on when to obtain and how to interpret a seismic assessment, including the limitations of the New Building Standard (%NBS) metric.
• Part B describes a process for building owners and tenants to go through when making decisions on occupancy of seismically vulnerable buildings.
• Part C provides guidance on how to manage ongoing earthquake risk and communicate this information with staff and other stakeholders.