Earthquake repairs begin on community facilities

Minor earthquake repairs are beginning this week on 46 community facilities owned by Christchurch City Council.

The repairs are being carried out under the Council’s Facilities Rebuild project, which provides a framework for future decision making around all the buildings it owns. It is expected that repairs will be completed by the end of June.

The facilities include toilet blocks and other buildings on a number of parks or reserves across Christchurch. The facilities that are undergoing repairs all have only minor cosmetic damage to the value of $5000. City Care has been contracted to do the work, which mainly includes fixing minor cracking and painting and will be covered by Council insurance.

General Manager Community Services and Facilities Rebuild Project Sponsor Michael Aitken says experienced assessors have checked the facilities to determine the repairs that are needed.

“It’s fantastic to be able to get underway with repairs on some of our community facilities. We have been able to start repairs on these buildings because we have been able to more readily identify the type of damage that has occurred to them due to the fact that they are simple structures.

“However, we face much more of a challenge with larger Council-owned buildings as we are carrying out Detailed Engineering Evaluations (DEEs), which are more intensive inspections, to gain a clearer picture of the level of damage they have sustained, and their capacity to withstand future earthquakes. This must occur before we can even start thinking about repairs.

“It can take up to eight weeks to carry out an engineering assessment of a building and it is expected it will take more than two years to carry out all the assessments needed. We understand our community is keen for some answers about facilities that are important to them, but we also need to look at the types of facilities that our community will need long term before committing ourselves to repairing a building.”

For a list of facilities undergoing repairs, visit http://www.ccc.govt.nz/facilitiesrebuild