Engineer says building a serious safety risk, but tenant stays put
Tuesday, 26 March 2019
An engineer says a particular Invercargill building is that unsafe he won't go inside it, yet it is still being occupied as a Night 'n Day dairy.
Batchelar McDougall Consulting structural engineer Graham McDougall, speaking on behalf of HWCP Ltd at its resource consent hearing on Tuesday, raised serious concerns about the Government Life building on the corner of Esk and Dee streets.
The building has not attracted a tenant on the upper floors for the past 35 years.
McDougall said the building had a New Building Standard (NBS) of between 10 and 20 percent.
One hundred per cent was a perfect building standard.
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He acknowledged there was a serious safety risk in the event of an earthquake.
'I won't go in there,' he said.
He said structurally it was weak and there were strops in place to support parts of the building to ensure those parts did not fall.
The building has three metre parapets at the top of it which added to the safety concerns, McDougall said.
'In the event of an earthquake, [it] just falls out and drops five floors.'
Despite McDougall's concerns, the building has not been deemed 'unsafe' under the Building Act which has meant the Night 'n Day food outlet has remained on the bottom floor.
HWCP Ltd owns the building and managing director Scott O'Donnell told Stuff after the hearing that they do not want anyone in the building because of the safety concerns.
O'Donnell said he has met with the Night 'n Day owners and provided them with all the information they had gathered in regard to the structural concerns.
However, Night 'n Day has opted to remain.
'Because it has not been deemed unsafe under the Building Act, legally we can not evict anyone,' O'Donnell said.
The two parties would now have to come to a commercial agreement, in regards to HWCP Ltd paying to get the Night 'n Day out of the building.
When approached for comment, Night 'n Day director Andrew Lane said there was no agreement between the landlord and tenant yet and he did not want to speak on the safety concerns that had been raised.
Submitter Christine Henderson spoke at the hearing of her desire to see the Government Life building restored and retained as part of the CBD development project.
McDougall acknowledged it could be done.
However, he said the adjoining buildings on the corner of Esk and Dee streets were in a state where restoration could cost more than the proposed new HWR offices which was planned to replace them.
As part of the CBD plan, three historic facades on Esk St will be included in the development, but Henderson wanted more retention work to be done.
Commissioner Gina Sweetman asked Henderson who she believed should front up with the money for that restoration and retention work.
Henderson believed it should be the Southland community who paid - through rates and other avenues.
Invercargill has 124 historic listed buildings as part of the district plan and O'Donnell did not believe there was the money available to ensure all of those are retained.
The Richardson Group had spent $1.3m on restoring the Classic Motorcycle Mecca building on Tay St, and O'Donnell said in most cases the cost of the restoration work was more than the value of the building itself.
He believed Invercargill's focus should be on identifying about 20 historic buildings worth keeping.
'Certain groups [are keen] for all 124 buildings to be retained but with no strategy for how to achieve this,' O'Donnell said.
The resource consent hearing for HWCP Management Ltd's estimated $190m inner-city development started in Invercargill on Monday.
The block which HWCP Ltd plans to demolish and build a largely under-cover retail precinct is between Tay St and Esk St, and bordered by Kelvin and Dee streets.
The hearing will continue on Wednesday morning.