A register of earthquake-prone buildings in Central Otago should be finalised within the next fortnight.
The work was under way well before the Christchurch earthquakes happened, Central Otago District Council planning manager Louise van der Voort said this week.
"The council has an 'earthquake-prone building' policy which was adopted in 2007, and as part of the work involved in implementing that policy, we're doing an initial 'desktop' review of all buildings in the district, aside from single-storey residential houses." The review was to assess which buildings could be defined as earthquake prone and to advise owners, and to encourage them to have a structural assessment done.
She was unsure how many buildings in the district had so far been identified as earthquake prone but the register should be completed in about a week.
Work on the register began in 2007 and had taken longer than expected.
"Our energies have been focused on processing building consents so the desktop survey has taken longer than we anticipated. However, through the building consent process, we've made sure we've captured any earthquake-prone buildings, so its not like they've gone under the radar."
The council's policy was a "passive" one, which meant work on upgrading and strengthening earthquake-prone buildings was triggered when resource consent was sought to alter existing buildings or change their use.
That happened recently when consent was sought to renovate the council-owned Coronation Hall in Bannockburn. An engineers' assessment on the 99-year-old building found there was a high risk of complete structural failure of all walls in a moderate earthquake. The facility was closed to the public and will probably be demolished for safety reasons.
The earthquake policy was up for review next year and changes were likely, Ms van der Voort said.
