As part of the Wellington Heritage Festival a meeting was held at the Wellington Club, organised by Rotary to explore the problem of how heritage building owners balance preservation with earthquake strengthening and safety regulations.
The keynote speaker was Chris Penk, Minister of Building and Construction, with the intention of sharing insights on these challenges and the Ministry’s efforts to extend deadlines and review the Building Code. His goal is to create more certainty and better incentives for owners of heritage Buildings.
Several Herbert Gardens shareholders were there, including Ian and Jenny McKinnon, David Dunsheath (member of the Major Works Committee) and Sally Schoon (Chair, Internal Committee)/
Both David and Sally agreed to write comments for the readers of our Newsflash blog.
"Penk was a skilled speaker and he generated a huge amount of enthusiastic discussion in the room afterwards but his content was I thought underwhelming political speak. All questions from the floor were good but most were self interest/personal experience as you would expect rather than bigger picture stuff to hold Penk to account for equitable support throughout the country.
"The panel Penk then joined included Iona Pannet, Ian Cassels, Jamie Jacob's (Heritage), Morris Love, and Richard Sharpe." -- Sally
"As a Wellington Heritage Festival event, there was considerable attention on heritage structures.
"Minister Penk spoke mostly on principles guiding the EPB review such as "goldilocks outcomes"; pragmatism -v- purism; private & public financing; challenges & opportunities; certainty with flexibilty; environment such as remediate -v- demolish); functionality such as both modern & heritage standards.
"Most panelists favoured pragmatic solutions for the City to Sea Overbridge. Support for its demolition from one councillor drew major audience disapproval.
"Highly respected seismic engineer panelist, Richard Sharpe, was adamant the insurance sector is focused on hazards, contrary to claimed focus on risks.
"Penk's and panelists' responses to my question, indicated vague familiarity with the AS/NZ Risk Management Standard that guides reliable outcomes from assessment of consequences & likelihoods.
"There was no opportunity to raise HG-specific issues but afterwards, Penk acknowledged his awareness of HG's pertinent situation. Our proposed December submission might be very well received." -- David
"There was no opportunity to raise HG-specific issues but afterwards, Penk acknowledged his awareness of HG's pertinent situation. Our proposed December submission might be very well received." -- David
No comments:
Post a Comment