Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill first reading

About the Bill

The Bill aims to create a more practical, proportionate system that focuses on life safety where earthquake risk is greatest, while reducing unnecessary compliance costs for lower-risk areas.

The Bill will introduce changes to target buildings that pose the greatest risk to life safety, while improving affordability, reducing unnecessary costs and disruption, particularly in regional communities.

By enabling more cost-effective approaches to seismic strengthening, remediation will be more accessible for building owners than under the current settings.

The proposed changes include:

• Removing low risk buildings and buildings in low seismic zones (Auckland, Northland and the Chatham Islands) from the Earthquake-Prone Building system.
• Introducing tiered risk mitigation requirements. The new requirements make use of new engineering methodologies, based on
  • seismic risk locations
  • building type, targeting unreinforced masonry and heavy-material buildings 3 storeys or higher.
• Allowing building owners to apply for deadline extensions, provided they can meet key criteria.
• Reducing barriers to seismic strengthening by removing the requirement for concurrent fire and accessibility upgrades.

Next steps

The Bill has passed its first reading in Parliament and will now go to the Transport and Infrastructure Select Committee.

Submissions to the select committee are now open via the Parliament website.

Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill(external link) — New Zealand Parliament