The Reform
Construction Minister Chris Penk has announced a comprehensive overhaul of New Zealand’s earthquake-prone building assessment system, replacing the current New Building Standard (NBS) framework with a risk-based approach. The projected savings from avoided remediation and demolition costs total $8.2 billion — a figure that reflects the scale of compliance burden imposed by the current regime, particularly on building owners in regions where the combination of earthquake-prone classification and mandated simultaneous upgrades has made remediation economically unviable.
Separating Earthquake Strengthening from Fire and Access Upgrades
The most consequential change in the reform package is the elimination of the requirement to simultaneously upgrade fire safety and disability access when performing earthquake strengthening work. Under the current system, an owner who commissions seismic strengthening on a building that also has deficiencies in fire safety or disability access can be required to complete all three upgrades simultaneously — a bundling of compliance costs that has, in many cases, made the total project cost prohibitive and led building owners to opt for demolition rather than remediation.
Minister Penk was direct about the consequence of this bundling: “This requirement can add significantly to building costs and has discouraged owners from carrying out essential seismic safety work.” The reform allows owners to phase the upgrades separately, making seismic strengthening financially accessible as a standalone project rather than a trigger for a comprehensive compliance marathon.
Geographic Targeting
The reform also introduces geographic differentiation that better reflects actual seismic risk. Auckland, Northland, and the Chatham Islands will be excluded from earthquake-prone building requirements given their low seismic risk profiles — a change that will remove the compliance burden from thousands of buildings in regions where the risk of significant earthquake damage is materially lower than in Wellington, Canterbury, or Marlborough.
The targeted categories that remain subject to requirements focus on concrete buildings three storeys or higher and unreinforced masonry structures — the typologies with the highest demonstrated risk in major seismic events, as confirmed by the 2010-2011 Canterbury earthquake sequence and the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake.
The Political Response
ACT has described the reform as “a triumph of reason and logic.” Labour has raised concerns about the economic impact on the construction sector during a period of already-reduced activity. For the building and engineering sector, the reform creates a cleaner regulatory environment for seismic strengthening projects — one where the compliance pathway is more predictable and the cost structure is more manageable for building owners who have previously been deterred from undertaking necessary work.
