Dear Upper Hutt City Council,

My request is relative to the Upper Hutt City Council Earthquake Prone Building Policy. I ask as an interested ratepayer and resident in the area.

Could you please provide:

1.The total number of buildings in Upper Hutt which qualify for assessment
Ie The number of buildings which are not used wholly or mainly for residential purposes or which have a residential use and are two or more storeys and contain three or more units

2.A list of the 'earthquake prone' buildings as outlined in Sec 5.3.2.6 of the councils earthquake prone building policy (ie whether they have been issued with an earthquake prone building notice or not - those buildings less then 34%NBS after detailed assessment or where no further assessment will occur by agreement)

3.A list of buildings with earthquake prone building notices currently in place as per the process outlined in Sec 5.3.2.9 and, if it differs, a list of the register in accordance with Sec 5.3.2.10.4 of the council policy.

4.The current status in terms of the councils policy, %NBS (of the lowest performing building element) and importance level used in the assessment of any electricity sub-stations located in the streets bounded by Holdsworth Ave, Moonshine Rd, John St, Ararino St, Tawai St & Brentwood St and the substation located alongside the railway line on Sutherland Ave/Messines Rd. Also please include whether the %NBS came from an Initial Assessment or a Detailed Assessment.

5.The current status in terms of the councils policy, %NBS (of the lowest performing building element) and importance level used in the assessment of
-The Trentham Racecourse Grandstands
-The Trentham Fire Station located at approx. 549 Fergusson Dr
-The Telephone Exchange located at approx. 586 Fergusson Dr
-The Designated Emergency Operations Centre located at 836 Fergusson Dr - or any other building designated to act as the Upper Hutt EOC
Also please advise whether the %NBS result came from an Initial Assessment or a Detailed Assessment.

6.The current status in terms of the councils policy and %NBS (of the lowest performing building element) of
-The Fig Tree Café building on Fergusson Dr,
-The Graze Restaurant building on Ararino St
-The complex of buildings which makes up 'The Mall'
-The CBD Tower Building on Main St
Also please advise whether the %NBS result came from an Initial Assessment or a Detailed Assessment.

7. If no detailed assessment is held for a building listed in Q5 or Q6 above please provide a copy of the council’s assessment completed as per the process outlined in Sec 5.3.2.6.

If a detailed assessment provides a range of %NBS for various elements of a building please feel free to provide this additional information or any other information you believe may provide a more accurate indication of the situation should you choose.

Thank-you in advance,

Fraser

Dear Karen,

Thank-you for your response, inside the 20 day timeframe indicated. I note I am a little disappointed with the response and may write in order to clarify some points.

Yours sincerely,

Fraser

Dear Karen,

Thank-you for the information provided.

I write in order to provide and obtain clarification in terms of your response to hopefully allow the free release of some of the information in the interests of freedom of information. In order to avoid any doubt please do not consider/nor instigate the below to be a new request for information, only clarification and hopefully therefore proper release regards the original request.

In terms of

1.
Related to your answer regards this could you advise whether the Outline Implementation Programme referred to in section 5.3.2.11.1 is found in the manual of policies, or is this a separate document – is it published on the web-site?

2. Thank-you for the register provided.

3.
Could you please confirm that this was intended to be included in the substantial collation response?

If so I am a little concerned that the council does not hold nor have an ability to easily and quickly automatically generate a register of those buildings for which it currently has an earthquake prone building notice in place - for the purposes of monitoring etc.

I highlight the second leg of my request – the register in accordance with Sec 5.3.2.10.4 of the council policy. I note Upper Hutt City Council is required to ‘keep a register of all earthquake prone buildings’ by Sec 5.3.2.10.4 of the Earthquake Prone Building Policy. Therefore I would expect a maintained register to be held already. Hence no collation should be required for the second leg of this request and this register should therefore be released free of charge.

Relative to Sec 5.3.2.10.4 of the Earthquake Prone Building Policy I expected the term earthquake prone to mean those buildings which have an earthquake prone building notice in place, please correct me if this interpretation is incorrect.

From a quick google search a number of other councils throughout New Zealand publish a register of buildings which have an earthquake prone notice in place on their web-sites and some even include details such as the notice expiry date. It would therefore seem unusual that you would consider this as requiring substantial collation and research, and I would be happy were you to choose as an alternative to interpret this as the intent of my request and provide such a register of buildings with notices in place free of charge.

4-7.
I note that I am disappointed with the response and proposal that it would cost $1680 and would take 20 hours to obtain the %NBS (of the lowest performing element) and importance level of approx 10-15 buildings. Presumably there would only be a couple of those that have not obtained a DSA triggering Q7. It would be interesting to test whether this charge would be considered ‘reasonable’ in terms of section 13(3) of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act.

At this stage I do not wish to proceed with this part of the request, however in order to make a final decision regards this could you please provide a breakdown of cost and time relative to each question. Also could you please advise why the $84 varies from the $76 outlined in your Official Information Statement/Policy?

If it would make the free release possible I would be happy to simply receive a copy of the Council Assessment or Detailed Assessment (whichever is the latest of the two) for the buildings requested and I could view the information direct. I would also be happy to provide the addresses for the substations for you also to reduce work involved.

I look forward to your response, and hopefully the further release of some of the information. Thank-you once again for your help to date.

Yours sincerely,

Fraser

Hi Karen,

I think your intention was to post your latest reply to this stream, you may wish to post it to this stream so that there is a logical timeline. Not sure if you can delete it from the other.

I await your further as noted in your response.

Yours sincerely,

Fraser

Dear Karen,

Thank-you for posting this to the correct stream. I look forward to your further response.

Yours sincerely,

Fraser