Unintended consequences of the earthquake-prone building legislation: An evaluation of two city centre regeneration strategies in New Zealand's provincial areas

Abstract

This paper describes two city centre regeneration strategies by reviewing existing literature and carrying out case study analysis to examine the approaches to City Centre Regeneration (CCR) pursued by two provincial areas in New Zealand.Findings from the exploratory case study analysis of the two examined cities revealed different approaches to CCR: (i) Invercargill -'demolition for redevelopment'; and (ii) Whanganui -'heritage preservation for regeneration'. Whereas the earthquake-prone building legislation has created logical arguments that have put earthquake-prone historical buildings in the spotlight for demolition in areas with weaker attachment to place, the same legislation has been used as a catalyst to provide opportunities for the seismic upgrade and preservation of the earthquake-prone historical buildings in areas with a stronger attachment to place.These discoveries imply that the actions (or inactions) of councils shape the way their communities perceive the value of the historical buildings in their city centres. Also, the decreasing retention and increasing demolitions trends of heritage buildings in New Zealand's provincial city centres as a result of the earthquake-prone building legislation, have now triggered discussions that have contributed to the recent regulatory and financial incentives initiated by the central government to address the unintended consequences of the legislation on the vitality of provincial areas.

Prioritising optimal underutilised historical buildings for adaptive reuse: a performance-based MCDA framework validation in Auckland, New Zealand

“…In New Zealand, "heritage buildings" are historical buildings with heritage significance listed in the national heritage register or local district plans (Aigwi et al, 2021;Heritage New Zealand, 2019). Current society still perceives some derelict and underutilised historical buildings as eyesores to the public, therefore, underestimating the strive for conservation activities in New Zealand (Aigwi et al, 2020a). As owners of existing historical buildings are mandated by legislation to protect derelict historical buildings, most of them would prefer to apply the "wait and see" approach, especially when their buildings are earthquake-prone, due to uncertainty in return on investment to seismically retrofit their buildings (Aigwi et al, 2019a).…”

“…There are usually extensive implications of the "wait and see" decision on the general community due to the downstream effects on the socio-economic environment of the local area. In active seismic countries such as New Zealand (Nwadike and Wilkinson, 2020a), the unintended consequences of the earthquake-prone building legislation have contributed to "plaguing" many city centres with underutilised historical buildings (Yakubu et al, 2017), which has now created a significant opportunity for the local authorities of such affected areas to pursue citycentre regeneration strategies (Aigwi et al, 2020a).…”

“…, 2021; Heritage New Zealand, 2019). Current society still perceives some derelict and underutilised historical buildings as eyesores to the public, therefore, underestimating the strive for conservation activities in New Zealand (Aigwi et al. , 2020a).…”

“…Extending the performance-based planning methodology to evaluate collaborative adaptive reuse decision-making processes involves the practical assessment of relevant priority aspects and criteria with fixed quantitative limits on satisfactory adaptive reuse standards for effective outcomes (Aigwi et al. , 2020a, c).…”

An evidence-based framework validation for building code improvement in New Zealand

“…In an effort towards providing solutions to the unintended consequences surrounding the use of performance-based building code, the MBIE started making changes to the building code on a bi-annual basis in 2018 to keep the building code up to the societal expectations and latest developments with clarity and consistency (MBIE, 2018). Building code amendment helps the regulators to proactively respond to the needs of the building sectors, society and the manufacturers while creating enabling environment for the building professionals to deliver better buildings (Aigwi et al, 2020a(Aigwi et al, , 2019a. Accordingly, recent changes in the building code make compliance much easier with better building code compliance pathways (MBIE, 2019b).…”