Legal action is possible over the Ministry of Education vacating its Wellington head office due to earthquake risks.
Ministry of Education head office in Wellington. Photo:
The ministry said it pulled out staff a month ago after engineers rated the 12-storey block at 25 percent of New Building Standard (NBS).
The building's owner, Wellington Investment Group, said the ministry acted prematurely based on a preliminary, "limited" assessment.
"We have advised the tenant that we reserve our rights to hold them accountable for product defamation," Wellington Investment Group director Brian Coburn told RNZ.
"We will be looking at our remedies once we have had more time to assess the situation.
"What we do know is when we purchased the building in 2019, we had [engineers] Beca undertake a high level review of the seismic reports available, and Beca concluded the building was about 80 percent NBS."
It was "extremely puzzling" why the ministry chose to act on the basis of an assessment targeted at assessing the floors rather than the whole building, Coburn said.
"Prior to their decision, we had offered the tenant we would, at our own cost, obtain a detailed seismic assessment of the building and share the report with them.
"They have chosen to react to a limited, targeted report."
The company and the ministry are each getting their own, separate full seismic assessments done.
Wellington Investment Group's assessement would be done by around August, Coburn said.
"Until you can look at all the building elements and model the calculations, you cannot come to a seismic rating for the building," he said.
"But that hasn't prevented this tenant from jumping to that conclusion."
The targeted assessment done in March for the ministry uses the latest methodology, called the Yellow Chapter, which accounts for new findings about floor failures revealed in the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake, but which lacks the legal power to declare any building earthquake-prone.
The targeted assessment recommends a full detailed seismic assessment (DSA) be done.
"We raised a challenge to the correctness of a limited targeted report which states quite clearly that it recommends ... a full DSA be obtained," Coburn said.
Ministry of Education leader of corporate Zoe Griffiths said: "We respect the building owner's right to share his views."
This sort of friction was foretold.
Engineers warned in a report last year for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) that they were hearing of "confusion and misunderstanding about seismic building assessment regulation".
"Businesses and government agencies vacating buildings has contributed to this confusion," the report said. "Some building owners are setting a precedent for building scrutiny, closures or departures over and above what is required in current regulation."
The ministry's own risk assessment for its head office said its engineer indicated it had "no objections to continued occupation of the building while the remediation strategy is developed and implemented".
But the ministry said even if the risk level was approrpriate, the disruption of strengthening work would count against keeping staff there.
Also, the "residual risk" of a big quake "is greatly reduced by moving them out of the building at the earliest opportunity", its risk assessment said.
The report for MBIE last year said the Yellow Chapter was "technically superior and more straightforward" than the corresponding section of the older methodology, called the Red Book.
Engineers wanted just a single guideline for seismic assessments, it said. Having two "creates confusion and further market uncertainty".
"The existence of both the Red Book and Yellow Chapter adds complexity to building owners' choices and decisions, both in terms of undertaking assessments and deciding what to do about results.
"Building owners want confidence and trust in seismic assessment guidelines and they expect regulation to be based on the latest knowledge."