Justice Centre | 19 Aitken Street
DX SX10088 | Wellington
T 04 918 8800 |
F 04 918 8820
[email address] | www.justice.govt.nz
13 July 2023
Frank
[FYI request #23079 email]
Our ref: OIA 105428
Tēnā koe Frank
Official information act request: Seismic resilience
Thank you for your email of 10 June 2023, to the Canterbury Regional Council requesting
information relating to the seismic resilience of the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC).
On 20 June 2023, your request was transferred to the Ministry of Justice (the Ministry) as it
is the owner of the Christchurch Justice and Emergency Services Precinct (CJESP) in which
the EOC is based. Specifically, you requested:
Please identify for your CDEM Group and it’s members each building that is currently
identified as the building intended/likely to be used as -the ECC -an EOC after a
seismic event. Please provide the buildings current %nbs at IL4, the date of the last
assessment, and the type of seismic assessment completed. Alternately if you do not
hold/cannot provide the above please provide the last seismic assessment for the
buildings identified above
I have interpreted your request to be requiring information for the Canterbury region, only.
In response to the first part of your request, I can confirm that the EOC is based within the
Emergency Services Building at CJESP, 40 Lichfield St, Christchurch. CJESP brings
together all justice and emergency services in one purpose-built building and contains three
official Civil Emergency response service providers, being:
a) Christchurch City Council – Civil Defence & Emergency Management (Local)
b) Environment Canterbury – Regional Civil Defence & Emergency Management
c) National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA)
During an emergency event, other onsite precinct agencies (i.e., the New Zealand Police,
Fire and Emergency New Zealand, Hato Hone St John and Department of Corrections) will
become involved in the response and, depending on the type and nature of the incident, will
determine the lead agency for that event. Other external agencies may also become
involved in the case of a significant event. Due to the varying nature of emergencies, it is
difficult to know which specific organisations and personnel will attend to the EOC during an
event. Therefore, I am refusing the part of your request asking to identify the Civil Defence
Emergency Management Groups members, under section 18(g) of the Act as the
information requested is not held by the Ministry and I have no grounds for believing it is
held by another agency subject to the Act.
Before answering the second part of your request, it is important to provide some
background information on the CJESP building. Earthquake-prone buildings are given an
earthquake rating, commonly referred to as a percentage of the New Building Standard
(%NBS). These ratings asses the degree to which the building meets the seismic
performance requirements of the Building Code. As the CJESP is an Importance Level 4
(IL4) building, it has been built in accordance with the seismic performance requirements of
the Building Code. The CJESP was opened in 2017 and is considered a ‘new build’, so it
has been built to achieve a 100% NBS rating. Therefore, no seismic assessments have
been undertaken. I am refusing this part of your request under section 18(e) of the Act as the
information does not exist.
If you require any further information, please contact Media & Social Media Manager Joe
Locke at [email address].
Please note that this response, with your personal details removed, may be published on the
Ministry website at: justice.govt.nz/about/official-information-act-requests/oia-responses/.
If you are not satisfied with this response, you have the right to make a complaint to the
Office of the Ombudsman under section 28(3) of the Act. The Office of the Ombudsman may
be contacted by email to [email address] or by phone on 0800 802 602.
Nāku noa, nā
Tina Wakefield
Deputy Secretary Corporate & Digital Services
