The Hutt City Council says it did not treat the local health board any differently to any other building owner.
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
The DHB revealed this week the major Heretaunga block at Hutt Hospital was quake-prone, needed to be closed and possibly demolished and replaced.
The Hutt Valley DHB said it did not undertake strengthening work suggested on the block years ago to avoid disruption to patients and services.
The DHB last year supplied a 10-year-old seismic assessment to persuade the council the Heretaunga Block was not earthquake prone.
A new assessment now rates it at a low 15 percent of New Building Standard.
The council in December 2019 gave the DHB a year to do a new seismic assessment.
In March 2021, the DHB made clear it wanted to rely on its 2011 detailed seismic assessment that rated the block at 43 percent NBS - in the quake 'risk' category, not the worse quake 'prone' category.
The DHB's chief financial officer Mathew Parr said in a statement today that changes in 2017 to earthquake building rules and laws "did not require owners to undertake new assessments".
Last May, the council accepted the DHB's old assessment.
The 2011 assessment by Aurecon engineers met the official criteria, a council statement to RNZ said.
However, the report did raise concerns about the way the seven-storey block might fail in a quake, leading to the engineers to put forward a strengthening plan in 2012.
"The work was not approved at the time, in order to avoid disruption to patients and services," Parr said today.
Instead, the strengthening design was included in a master plan, that was itself reviewed in 2018.
The DHB did not say where that master plan had got to now.
The council said when it accepted the 2011 assessment from the DHB, it followed the official criteria from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment that included:
- The assessment was undertaken by a suitably qualified and skilled engineer
- Both an internal and external inspection were carried out
- The relevant standard or guidelines in effect at the time were followed
- An NBS percentage is given
"The 2011 DSA met the MBIE criteria," the council told RNZ today.
"There are other circumstances in which a territorial authority may also accept a previous assessment," it said, without elaborating.
The council's legal advice was the Building Act places the obligations on the building owner.
"The council's role is as a regulator and it had no legal obligation under the Act to complete its own assessment or to second-guess the 2011 DSA," the council said.
The situation could not be looked at in hindsight, as legally the council role was "solely to assess the report as it was received in 2011 and assess whether any regulatory steps were required to be taken at that stage. In this case, no such steps were required".
The DHB's Matthew Parr said the council a year ago "confirmed" the 2011 assessment complied with the requirements of the Earthquake Prone Building methodology.
"It should be noted that New Zealand has had a progressive approach to improving standards for new buildings and earthquake-resistant design.
"The 2017 changes [after the 2016 Kaikoura quake] ... provided a framework for future assessments to include progressive refinements as knowledge increased about seismicity, material properties, and the response of buildings in earthquake shaking."
NBS ratings compared risks between old and new buildings, and did not assess safety, Parr said.
The DHB had assessed all its infrastructure in a planned and systematic way alongside the Ministry of Health, he said.
"We are now planning our next steps to exit the building while continuing to provide services to our communities - our highest priority being the ongoing and continued safety of staff, patients, and visitors."