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Speaker 1: The earthquake changes, thousands of buildings will no longer be

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Speaker 1: classified as high risk. Only three story plus concrete buildings

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Speaker 1: all those with unreinforced masonry like brick walls will now

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Speaker 1: require full upgrades. And he's get on an Institute of

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Speaker 1: Building Survey as President Daryl august with me this morning, Darreel.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Good morning, Ran. How are you good?

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Speaker 1: Good? Thank you. Thoughts on this.

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Speaker 2: Look at obviously a positive move for a lot of

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Speaker 2: owners in New Zealand that crippled with the fact that

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Speaker 2: they're going to have to spend a lot of money

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Speaker 2: where we're going to have to spend a lot of

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Speaker 2: money on their buildings to upgrade them. However, we do

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Speaker 2: have some concerns around just making sure that we don't

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Speaker 2: go too far and making sure that you know the

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Speaker 2: right measures are in place. Still, the removal of the

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Speaker 2: need to look at other building elements such as fire

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Speaker 2: and accessibility does concern us somewhat, and I think when

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Speaker 2: I read through the media release it does confused me

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Speaker 2: slightly where it says that owners won't need to address

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Speaker 2: those items, but then it also says that the territorial

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Speaker 2: authority will still need to check those items, So the

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Speaker 2: two don't really match at the moment, but obviously the

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Speaker 2: devils in the detail. When we see more, we'll be

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Speaker 2: able to tell what the consequences are of those changes.

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Speaker 1: So you're saying it's not necessarily the earthquake stuff, but

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Speaker 1: it's what fire escapes and wheelchair ramps and stuff.

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Speaker 2: Well. Look, accessibility is obviously a concern for people who

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Speaker 2: require accessibility means to enter a building, but in terms

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Speaker 2: of fire, that's a pretty critical safety item within a building,

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Speaker 2: fire performance alarms and passivefire requirements. So generally with a

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Speaker 2: seismic upgrade to a building, there would be other building

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Speaker 2: elements that do require remediation as well, and that's quite common.

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Speaker 2: So what the government's looking to do here is removed

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Speaker 2: the need to upgrade those systems. I'm not sure exactly

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Speaker 2: how much detail there is at the moment on what

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Speaker 2: that all looks like, but a standard approach of a

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Speaker 2: mediation of assignment building or building assitemic issues would be

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Speaker 2: that you know, a fire engineer would be involved in

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Speaker 2: do it gap analysis report of the building and be

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Speaker 2: able to tell the owners how it complies currently with

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Speaker 2: the building code and what it may need to do

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Speaker 2: to comply with any other provisions of the Building Code.

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Speaker 1: Now, all the changes that they have made on earthquakes,

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Speaker 1: where does that put us in terms of global rankings?

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Speaker 1: You know, how safe would the buildings be here and

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Speaker 1: relative to earth great risk versus other places.

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Speaker 2: Look, I wouldn't be able to say. I don't work internationally,

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Speaker 2: so you know my expertise is in New Zealand. What

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Speaker 2: I would say is that I do have some concern

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Speaker 2: about the removal of seismic upgrade to buildings and low

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Speaker 2: risk areas. I suppose I did hear something on your

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Speaker 2: news bulletin earlier today where somebody was talking about if

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Speaker 2: you remove those requirements in low risk areas, what happens

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Speaker 2: if something happened similar to what happened in Australia a

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Speaker 2: few years ago in a low risk area where it

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Speaker 2: earthquake did it? And so when we look at Auckland,

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Speaker 2: and I'm not trying to scaremonger here, but if something

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Speaker 2: did happen in Auckland, that could significantly cripple our country.

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Speaker 2: So I think building owners need to be cognizant of

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Speaker 2: the changes and if they feel that there are things

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Speaker 2: that need to be done to their building. There is

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Speaker 2: nothing stopping them doing work to their building if they

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Speaker 2: are concerned about it.

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Speaker 1: Darrell, appreciate your time. Darryl August, who's with the New

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Speaker 1: Zealand Institute of Building Survey as their president.

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