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Quake’s impact hits city building owners
Thursday, September 27, 2012 • Marianne Gillingham
IT is nearly five years since the city was hit with the 6.8 magnitude Christmas earthquake but the aftershocks continue for some building owners and their tenants.

Another batch of strengthening notices have been sent out and among those in the firing line are former government buildings built in the 1960s and early 1970s.

These multi-storey buildings, erected with materials other than mortar and bricks before 1976 when modern buildings codes came into effect, are mainly buildings that were exempt from local authority building requirements.

Some of them are similar in design to the former Pine Gould and CTV buildings that collapsed catastrophically in the Christchurch earthquakes.

Immune to the next phase in earthquake protection of our inner city is the former Post Office building in Grey Street, which has been extensively renovated and strengthened to a level beyond the new requirements.

Gisborne District Council building control manager Ian Petty hopes all of Gisborne’s public buildings will meet the new standards by 2022, which could make Gisborne the first city in New Zealand to achieve this.

Restaurateur Grant Bailey’s business is recovering from its third commercial aftershock from the 2007 quake.

The first time around he had to shut down for over a week at the busiest time of the year, after the building he leases was yellow-stickered following the quake. This meant it required a full inspection and clearance before being allowed to reopen to the public.

The second time he had to close again, this time for six weeks, for replastering work on the cracked walls and ceilings.

Closure this month was to allow the owners to have strengthening work done on that section of the building.

This time around he had no insurance cover for disruption to business and loss of income, having exhausted his entitlement at a time most insurance companies are trying to reduce their earthquake exposure.

Work this time involved the insertion of strengthening beams across both sides of Fettucines. It meant large pillars had to be installed in the front and midsection of seating areas, in both the restaurant and wine bar.

Although Mr Bailey appreciates that these beams are designed to prevent a catastrophic collapse of the building in the event of an earthquake even stronger than that of December 2007, it also meant the loss of table capacity in the restaurant half, with an associated reduction in seating numbers from 42 to 28.

This, in turn, undermined his ability to deliver his range of a la carte Mediterranean dishes.

Mr Bailey said the wastage resulting from the reduced number of requests was phenomenal, not to mention changes in staffing needs.

These changes alone forced him to reconfigure his operation to minimise the impact of staff and customers.

He has relocated the restaurant into the former wine bar area, which is larger, with the reduced restaurant area becoming the wine bar and cellar.

He has not been alone in dealing with the earthquake risk building predicament, with the Works restaurant and bar closed for several months and other businesses, including Footloose Shoes and T&T Childswear, forced to relocate for up to a year or more — resulting in the closure of Poppy’s bookstore. Others such as Jean Jones and the Holiday Shop have had to relocate permanently or close as the result of demolition work.

With work now under way on No. 37 Gladstone Road and the nearby “Number 9”, the only non-reinforced masonry building that still requires work is the building next door to the new building on the Ardoyne building site, which will be the new home for Cotton On.
QUAKE IMPACTS FIVE YEARS ON: The effects of the 2007 Gisborne earthquake continue to reverberate around the city . . . restaurateur Grant Bailey at a table in one of the window spaces at Fettucine Brothers, where there was once room for two. A reconfiguration has forced him to restructure the restaurant. Picture by Paul Rickard
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