Shortage of structural engineers

The first difficulty faced by Dunedin building owners who need to get their buildings' strength assessed may be finding someone to do the job.

Structural engineers say there is a shortage. Most already have a waiting list of at least three months.

Most are busy dealing with clients needing buildings strengthened so they can keep tenants and insurance cover.

Some doubt the mass assessment of Dunedin's non-residential building stock can be done within the two-year deadline set by the city council.

One also predicts what it will reveal will lead to a "building crisis" in the city.

Recent letters from the Dunedin City Council to the owners of all non-residential pre-1976 buildings in the city requiring them to have their buildings assessed have not yet prompted a rush for assessments, but engineers expect them to add significantly to their workloads in the next couple of years.

Structural engineer Stephen Macknight said he was telling people who contacted him now to call back in six months.

Like all other structural consulting engineers, his company had been busy since the Canterbury earthquakes. Clients included people from Timaru to Queenstown who could not engage engineers because so many were working in Christchurch.

Peter Stevenson, of Stevenson Brown, said new requests for assessments were "dribbling in", mainly from people with older buildings, but he was advising them it would be at least a three-month wait.

His company, like the others, had already done many assessments throughout the city in the wake of the quakes, but the work already done was unlikely to be a big portion of the many non-residential pre-1976 buildings in Dunedin.

Engineers throughout New Zealand were facing the same pressures as councils made the same requests of building owners, he said.

Jerry Kearney, of CPG, said the company was also busy with Christchurch work, as well as assessments and strengthening work in Dunedin, and there was a two-month wait for assessments.

He would not be surprised if the council had to extend its two-year deadline.

"I don't think there's enough engineers in the country to do all the work in the next two years."

Bruce Chisholm, of Hanlon and Partners, said the present pressure on engineers was coming from clients who needed work done urgently to avoid losing tenants or insurance cover.

Clients accepted he would be unable to assess buildings for about three months.

He was surprised how accepting building owners had been about plans to get the city's building stock up to strength.

He anticipated there would be a major backlash at some stage; probably when people learned how much it was going to cost to upgrade their buildings, which for many would be economically unworkable.

"This will lead to a building crisis, I'm sure of it. I don't think people recognise the scale of what will need to be done."

He also believed the council's 15-year deadline was not realistic for upgrading the worst buildings.

"I don't think the city can afford that. I don't think the city's done its homework here. There are a lot of buildings in Dunedin that will be worst-case."

- debbie.porteous@odt.co.nz

 

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