Public petition to save Courthouse for courts use

### ODT Online Mon, 7 Sep 2015
Using online petition to save courthouse
By Eileen Goodwin
An online petition is the latest strategy of the Dunedin City Council backed group trying to pressure the Government to restore the historic Dunedin courthouse. Set up by Dunedin city councillor Aaron Hawkins, a member of the Dunedin Courthouse Task Force, it had more than 220 signatures last night. The courthouse is in limbo as it lies vacant with no plan yet for its future.
Read more

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█ Website:
http://www.saveourcourthouse.nz

█ Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/SaveOurCourthouse

█ Petition to Justice Minister Amy Adams:
http://bit.ly/1FlZIWy (via Avaaz platform)

SAVE OUR COURTHOUSE

Dunedin’s Courthouse building has been the seat of justice in Dunedin since it was built in 1901. Following extensive renovation and restoration by the government in 2002, in 2011 it was declared an earthquake risk, and progressively mothballed.
There have been questions raised by reports detailing the further work that needs doing, and what it will cost, that remain unanswered. In the meantime, $6.8m has been spent fitting out temporary courts in an office building on High St, at an ongoing cost of $600,000 a year.
We’re calling on Justice Minister Amy Adams – and other Ministers who have a responsibility to the court – to commit to a timeframe for the return of the courts to their home on Lower Stuart St.
Read more

Related Posts and Comments:
11.7.15 Dunedin Law Courts “an incredible historic building” –Minister
14.5.15 Russell Lund on Ministry closure of Dunedin Law Courts
14.5.15 Justice at Dunedin
2.5.15 Ministry serves INJUSTICE for Dunedin Courthouse #HistoricHeritage

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

DCC releases earthquake-prone buildings register

█ Electronic copy of the register (via LGOIMA) can be viewed at Comments.

Owners of all non-residential, pre-1976 buildings had until the end of next year to have their buildings assessed and report results to the council.

### ODT Online Wed, 17 Sep 2014
Tip of quake iceberg released
By Chris Morris
A register of Dunedin’s earthquake-prone buildings has been made public for the first time, but it is likely to represent only the tip of the iceberg, the Dunedin City Council says. Council staff, responding to an Otago Daily Times request, have released details of four earthquake-prone buildings in Dunedin, as well as another 44 considered likely or possibly so.
Read more

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DCC webpage: Earthquake strengthening
‘Earthquake strengthening’ improves a building’s ability to withstand the effects of earthquakes and, most importantly, improves the safety for those in and around the buildings.
Due to the age of Dunedin’s building stock and the large number of unreinforced masonry buildings in the city, many of the city’s heritage buildings are currently ‘earthquake–prone’. In 2012, owners of buildings in Dunedin will receive letters to advise them of the need to have their buildings inspected by a qualified structural engineer to assess their potential performance in an earthquake. These assessments will be recorded in a Council register. Building owners will be given a set timeframe in which to upgrade their buildings. Notwithstanding this timeframe, building owners undertaking other significant improvement work or a ‘change of use’ of a building will be required to complete earthquake strengthening as part of that work….
Read more + Links

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█ DCC reply to an official information request put by Marty Sharpe, Hawke’s Bay Reporter for the Dominion Post (Fairfax) on 23 October 2012: http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/292578/OIA-23-November-2012-Earthquake-Prone-Buildings.pdf

New Zealand faults [wikimedia.org]

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin Heritage Re-use Awards @Wall Street mall

This year’s Dunedin Heritage Re-use Award winners will be announced later this week at Wall Street mall.

The Awards celebrate excellence, innovation and sensitivity in the re-use of heritage buildings in Dunedin and include categories for earthquake strengthening, interiors and overall re-use. A student design competition is also held during the year, which challenges students to develop innovative solutions to the re-use of Dunedin’s older buildings.

If not invited to the Awards Ceremony check out the exhibition during shop hours. The board display is located near Marbecks cafe and the Lifts at Wall Street. [● Inconveniently. the exhibition closed on the night of the Awards, Wednesday 26 March]

Enticements. Here’s a selection of student ‘re-use’ studies for the Athenaeum in the lower Octagon, taken by cameraphone on Friday. The building is owned by entrepreneur Lawrie Forbes.

Love the (lowrise) tower, it accents the building successfully for functional and community use.

The Awards are judged by a panel that includes Dunedin City Councillors, representatives from the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, the local branch of the New Zealand Institute of Architects and the Institute of Professional Engineers of New Zealand, and building owners.

█ This year’s Award winners are revealed here.
The names of last year’s Award winners are listed here.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Earthquake-prone Buildings Amendment Bill

The proposed amendment bill raises significant concerns about the maintenance of current building stock, the character and identity of towns and cities, and the economic and financial wellbeing of provincial councils and their communities. More than 7000 buildings south of Timaru would require upgrading, at a cost of $1.77 billion over a 15-year period.

### ODT Online Mon, 24 Feb 2014
Councils aghast changes could cost billions
By Andrew Ashton
South Island councils are expected to offer a ”united front” in opposing new Government building regulations that could cost councils billions of dollars to implement.
Last year the Waitaki District Council joined the Dunedin and Invercargill city councils and the Central Otago, Clutha, Gore, Mackenzie, Southland, Timaru and Waimate district councils to present a joint submission on a discussion paper detailing proposed changes to the way earthquake-prone buildings are managed.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: Town Halls and auxillary functions (clockwise from top left) Invercargill, Dunedin, Timaru and Oamaru – posterised by whatifdunedin

[bad news] St Clair seawall #FAIL

Comment received from Stu.
2013/05/26 at 7:29 pm

St Clair sea wall compromised? Webcam image refreshes every 1 minute.

http://media.wickednetworks.co.nz/current-stclair.jpg

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Tweet to @whatifdunedin from @lowercasewriter.

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Related Post and Comments:
28.11.11 St Clair seawall and beach access

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Imported steel —New Zealand, “sleepy corner of the world”

The question that is increasingly being asked here is whether New Zealand engineers can be absolutely certain they have been supplied the quality of steel they ordered and whether we have systems in place to ensure standards are adhered to. The industry appears to believe the answers to both of those questions is “no”.

### stuff.co.nz Last updated 05:00 05/05/2013
Engineers flag concern over imported steel
By Rob Stock – Sunday Star-Times
The Institute of Professional Engineers (IPENZ) has secretly alerted the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment of concerns about the quality of imported structural steel used in New Zealand buildings. The Institute admitted concerns about the quality of “materials and equipment including steel used in various industries – construction, engineering, and machinery” were relayed to MBIE just weeks ago, after being raised at the Institute’s annual forum in March. The Institute cautioned that the information received was “anecdotal” and “raised in a private members’ area”, adding “at this stage IPENZ is unaware of the scale of the issue, or whether they were one-off instances”.

Steel importers could easily find Chinese manufacturers willing to falsify certificates to pass off cheaper steel as high quality.

Less private, though, were two papers given at the Steel Innovations Conference in Christchurch in February, just before that March meeting, papers which for the first time publicly alluded to the issue. One paper delivered by three staffers of Australian steel company OneSteel called for the construction industry to only accept steel from manufacturers accredited by independent third parties. “In Australia, there have been some significant structural failures which have been due, either wholly or in part, to the lack of conformance of the product to the standard and the identification of its source. Unfortunately legal restrictions on the reporting of these failures means they cannot be readily identified or discussed in this paper,” the paper said. In other words, the steel was not what was ordered. Some might call it counterfeit. Evidence from the UK, the paper said, “undeniably confirms that the lack of product conformity and traceability is contributing to structural failures”.

“Engineers from quite different parts of the engineering family have realised that we all have this issue to some extent.” –John Hare, Structural Engineers Society

The second paper on the damage done by the Canterbury earthquakes to the 22-storey Pacific Tower in Christchurch, which has now been fully repaired, brings things closer to home. As one engineer familiar with the paper put it, there were instances of failure in some imported structural steel in the tower which should not have happened. “Some of the parts were damaged more than what was expected,” he said. The steel in question was imported from Singapore, and was found not to perform as well at lower temparature as New Zealand or Australian-made steel. The authors of the paper called for “rigorous traceability between mill certificates and the material used in the fabrication” for structural steel used in certain circumstances. “Steels of origins other than NZ/AU may not have the required toughness… to comply with the current New Zealand steel structures standards,” it said.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr