Earthquake Strengthening
Our Church Building needs strengthening to withstand earthquakes if we are to continue using it into the future.
The Earthquake Strengthening Project began in 2012 and is continuing.
Summary: In 2012 Sawrey Engineering assessed the seismic strength of our church as being below current seismic strength requirements and they went on to do a detailed assessment and design strengthening works. By October 2017 we had received a tender to carry out the work but we decided it was unaffordable.
Early in 2018 we engaged our current engineers, NZCEL, to look at the church. But on 20 March 2018 HCC notified us that the Church is earthquake prone and rated it at 10% of the National Building Standard, (based largely on the Sawrey analysis which they had been given). And that we need to strengthen to at least 34% NBS by 2033, (although the Diocese expect us to strengthen to at least 68% NBS by 2023). We moved out of the church.
NZCEL carried out analyses putting the church at already over 68% apart from roof bracing, and they did designed work to rectify this. In May 2019 we applied for a Building Consent to carry out this work. Since then HCC have appointed two reviewers, but neither have accepted NZCEL's work. Their conclusions have been coloured by the earlier analysis carried out by Sawrey, although this was not part of our consent application.
Following a meeting on 23 February 2021, referred to below, Vestry decided to call a temporary halt to our attempts to get a Building Consent.
In February 2023 we met with HCC , and with our engineers NZCEL, with a view to progressing our permit application. Diocese will now allow us to proceed with a strengthening design to 34%+ NBS. So at our 26 March AGM we rescinded a motion to allow strengthening to 68% and passed a motion to allow strengthening to >34% NBS. Our engineers will now work on a re-submission of our Building Consent application.
Early in 2018 we engaged our current engineers, NZCEL, to look at the church. But on 20 March 2018 HCC notified us that the Church is earthquake prone and rated it at 10% of the National Building Standard, (based largely on the Sawrey analysis which they had been given). And that we need to strengthen to at least 34% NBS by 2033, (although the Diocese expect us to strengthen to at least 68% NBS by 2023). We moved out of the church.
NZCEL carried out analyses putting the church at already over 68% apart from roof bracing, and they did designed work to rectify this. In May 2019 we applied for a Building Consent to carry out this work. Since then HCC have appointed two reviewers, but neither have accepted NZCEL's work. Their conclusions have been coloured by the earlier analysis carried out by Sawrey, although this was not part of our consent application.
Following a meeting on 23 February 2021, referred to below, Vestry decided to call a temporary halt to our attempts to get a Building Consent.
In February 2023 we met with HCC , and with our engineers NZCEL, with a view to progressing our permit application. Diocese will now allow us to proceed with a strengthening design to 34%+ NBS. So at our 26 March AGM we rescinded a motion to allow strengthening to 68% and passed a motion to allow strengthening to >34% NBS. Our engineers will now work on a re-submission of our Building Consent application.
The following more detailed Information on this page is in reverse Chronological order.
In early November 2021 we organised some geotechnical investigations on site. These were done on 3 December and our engineers are happy with the results as they are in line with the assumptions they made in their design calculations.
A meeting was held on 23 February 2021 between NZCEL our engineer, HCC and Colin Hickling and Reverend Karl. Although the reviewer, WSP have advised Council that they do not wish to continue, Council remain prepared to consider further refinement of our proposal, and suggested we could ammend and re-submit it. Vestry will now consider the detail of this option, but have decided to await the outcomes of our Discernment Process, Our Song, before doing so.
On 1 November 2020 HCC's reviewer, WSP, informed the Council, and through them our engineers NZCEL and us, that they are still unable to agree with the analysis and design, and so recommend that HCC not approve our our application for a Building Consent. Peter Johnston, for NZCEL is still confident that we have a safe church however, and that WSP are being unduly conservative. He is currently investigating our options, one of which may be to strengthen to 40%NBS rather than 68%.
Our engineers, NZCEL, met with the reviewer, WPS (was Opus),on 1 September 2020. There are now just three areas where the reviewer’s have concerns: the weight and strengthening calculations of the roof, the ductility value or deformation strength of the building and the behaviour of the tower in the event of liquifaction. Our engineers have done further work on these aspects, but at 24 November have yet to gain agreement from WPS .
As at 31 July 2020 our engineers, NZCEL have received some feedback via HCC from a new reviewer, WSP (previously Opus) and have sent their response back to HCC with a request to meet with the WSP reviewer.
On 19 February Hutt City Council (HCC) told our engineers, NZCEL, that their reviewing engineer does not accept NZCEL's proposal for our church earthquake strengthening design. This is the third response from the reviewer, as explained below. HCC has now given NZCEL (and us) two options:
1. HCC can send the relevant information to another consulting engineer to review, or
2. NZCEL can provide a list of 3 independent consulting engineers, HCC will select one of them, and that engineer will then be engages to review all the structural analysis, proposed strengthening design and comment that has taken place so far.
It is very disappointing that a deadlock seems to have been reached, but we have greater confidence in our engineers than in the HCC reviewer, so hopefully we'll eventually get a positive outcome to our building consent application.
On 26 February NZCEL responded that they wish to meet with HCC to discuss a way forward as they prefer to resolve the problems with the current reviewer, and do not see a change in approach as a viable option. Early in March NZCEL talked to HCC who indicated that they no longer want to work with the now-ex-current reviewer, but suggested a new reviewer whom NZCEL have worked with before and would be happy with, and who would hopefully pick up from where the ex-reviewer finished. Our engineers, Council and the new reviewer will now meet for preliminary discussions as soon as can be arranged.
Earlier, on 17 May 2019 our Building Consent application was submitted to the Hutt City Council (HCC). But there were minor amendments needed before they accepted it on 29 May.
We have applied for consent to carry out a seismic upgrade of the church. The building was assessed to have a seismic lateral load capacity of between 30 and 40% NBS (new building standard) in its current condition, the limiting structural element being the capacity of the diagonal strap bracing within the roof structure. The reinforced concrete walls, bell tower and foundation bearing capacity are capable of resisting more than 100%NBS demands in both orthogonal directions of the building.
The upgrade will focus on replacing the whole of the existing church ceiling with a plywood diaphragm to bring the roof bracing to above 100% NBS. The roof trusses will also be re-cladded with plywood and there will be minor work on fire safety and accessibility, including installation of emergency lighting.
On 7 June HCC told us that our structural strengthening documentation, prepared by our engineers New Zealand Consulting Engineers Limited, was to be reviewed by a peer reviewing engineer on their behalf. On 27 June Council requested further information but NZCEL needed a time extension due to high work loads and sickness, which HCC granted. Following a meeting between NZCEL, HCC and their peer reviewer on 27 August, NZCEL must provide additional calculations and information, which they completed and sent to HCC in the first week of December. HCC's consultant responded to this extra work with a further series of questions just before Christmas, to which NZCEL responded with further calculations, justifications and explanations on 31 January 2020.We now confidently wait yet again for HCC's response.
The Seismic Review Committee Report to our Annual General Meeting, 31 March 2019 is HERE
Progress Report at 25 November 2018.
At our last update on 29 July we told you that our engineers had completed their Detailed Seismic Assessment(DSA) of our Church building and that they don’t consider the church earthquake prone, so we gave their Assessment to Hutt City Council (HCC) and asked them to remove the EQ prone notice.
Unfortunately HCC are very conservative and wouldn’t do that. Colin Hickling and Murray met them and asked if they would give the assessment to their consultant engineers to evaluate before our engineers moved on to the design phase. They agreed, but advised us that they'd still require a review of the final design and analysis at Building Consent stage and the new as Analysis would be assessed against the earlier Sawrey analysis held by Council. The options were discussed within our SRC and with our Engineers, who were confident of their analysis. We therefore instructed our engineers to carry on with designing plywood bracing for the church roof, in accordance with their analysis. Their completion date for the design was early November but a drawing set for comments was finally delivered on Thursday last. We will take a few days to get to grips with the details and have a committee meeting this week to discuss them.
We then expect to move on to applying to Council for a building consent. The architect assisting in the old proposal has agreed to provide services as needed for this new solution. He will help with the permit application as the process is complex and he can also help with some peripherals like fire egress that we’ll need to include in the application.
Council tell us they’ll give our whole package of analysis and design to one of their consultant engineers to evaluate, and hopefully we’ll get a Building Consent. With only a month to Christmas and given the Consent process takes a month off over that period our current timing expects that Council’s consideration will not commence until the New Year. At that point we expect to be able to go out to tender again. But as mentioned earlier, Council are very conservative, so let’s not count our chickens. But God and Council willing we’ll eventually get there, and with a project that we can afford.
We’ve also been working on some other issues, including acoustic testing on the existing church building, so that we can measure the effect of the building work on acoustics, but our main focus is to get the building earthquake resistant up to 67% or 100% of the National Building Standard. Then we can assess our finances and maybe think about some ‘nice to dos’.
Colin Jon & Murray, Seismic Review Committee.
At 29 July 2018:
Today Reverend Karl announced that our Consulting Engineers NZCEL have completed a Detailed Seismic Assessment of our Church and this has been delivered to Hutt City Council with a request to remove their "Earthquake Prone" notice. More detail is HERE.
Since we decided no to accept the tender for strengthening work in October 2017 we have formed a Seismic Review Committee (SRC) to review all aspects of the project. Hutt City Council (HCC) have also become involved and have communicated with the Diocese Property Manager. Both are very supportive of our progress so far.
A second engineering consultant, New Zealand Consulting Engineers Ltd (NZCEL), are now working on the project. They have delivered an Analysis of our Church building using computer based modelling that indicated a better inherent building strength than the earlier work. Their 3D computer model avoids over simplification and better recognizes all parts of the building contributing to its seismic performance. The same consultants have recently done similar work for the Anglican Cathedral and St Francis de Sales church in Wellington and in both cases the conclusions were positive for the parishes and largely accepted by Wellington City Council.
Some on-site checking of existing bracing above the ceiling in the church was carried out on May 2, photos below to enhance the reliability of the analysis.
NZCEL delivered a Detailed Seismic Assessment (DSA) in June which has now been finalised and delivered to HCC who are likely to require it to be peer reviewed. Once agreement is reached between the peer reviewer and our consultant, it is hoped that HCC agree to remove their present “earthquake prone” notice - although removal may be subject to some recommended work to strengthen the roof bracing being undertaken first. We now await Council's response. Provided HCC substantially accept the DSA total remedial works should be substantially less than the tender we had last year.
Because on 20 March HCC notified us that the Church is earthquake prone and rated it at 10% of the National Building Standard. In response Reverend Karl and our Wardens decided that we shall temporarily cease using the Church and move to the Church Hall. Rev. Karl's Palm Sunday sermon has more detail on this. A copy of the HCC notice is here.
The SRC report to the 8 April AGM is HERE. This report was updated with Power Point slides. The slides and some additional ones are HERE.
Further detail on progress will be available soon.
A meeting was held on 23 February 2021 between NZCEL our engineer, HCC and Colin Hickling and Reverend Karl. Although the reviewer, WSP have advised Council that they do not wish to continue, Council remain prepared to consider further refinement of our proposal, and suggested we could ammend and re-submit it. Vestry will now consider the detail of this option, but have decided to await the outcomes of our Discernment Process, Our Song, before doing so.
On 1 November 2020 HCC's reviewer, WSP, informed the Council, and through them our engineers NZCEL and us, that they are still unable to agree with the analysis and design, and so recommend that HCC not approve our our application for a Building Consent. Peter Johnston, for NZCEL is still confident that we have a safe church however, and that WSP are being unduly conservative. He is currently investigating our options, one of which may be to strengthen to 40%NBS rather than 68%.
Our engineers, NZCEL, met with the reviewer, WPS (was Opus),on 1 September 2020. There are now just three areas where the reviewer’s have concerns: the weight and strengthening calculations of the roof, the ductility value or deformation strength of the building and the behaviour of the tower in the event of liquifaction. Our engineers have done further work on these aspects, but at 24 November have yet to gain agreement from WPS .
As at 31 July 2020 our engineers, NZCEL have received some feedback via HCC from a new reviewer, WSP (previously Opus) and have sent their response back to HCC with a request to meet with the WSP reviewer.
On 19 February Hutt City Council (HCC) told our engineers, NZCEL, that their reviewing engineer does not accept NZCEL's proposal for our church earthquake strengthening design. This is the third response from the reviewer, as explained below. HCC has now given NZCEL (and us) two options:
1. HCC can send the relevant information to another consulting engineer to review, or
2. NZCEL can provide a list of 3 independent consulting engineers, HCC will select one of them, and that engineer will then be engages to review all the structural analysis, proposed strengthening design and comment that has taken place so far.
It is very disappointing that a deadlock seems to have been reached, but we have greater confidence in our engineers than in the HCC reviewer, so hopefully we'll eventually get a positive outcome to our building consent application.
On 26 February NZCEL responded that they wish to meet with HCC to discuss a way forward as they prefer to resolve the problems with the current reviewer, and do not see a change in approach as a viable option. Early in March NZCEL talked to HCC who indicated that they no longer want to work with the now-ex-current reviewer, but suggested a new reviewer whom NZCEL have worked with before and would be happy with, and who would hopefully pick up from where the ex-reviewer finished. Our engineers, Council and the new reviewer will now meet for preliminary discussions as soon as can be arranged.
Earlier, on 17 May 2019 our Building Consent application was submitted to the Hutt City Council (HCC). But there were minor amendments needed before they accepted it on 29 May.
We have applied for consent to carry out a seismic upgrade of the church. The building was assessed to have a seismic lateral load capacity of between 30 and 40% NBS (new building standard) in its current condition, the limiting structural element being the capacity of the diagonal strap bracing within the roof structure. The reinforced concrete walls, bell tower and foundation bearing capacity are capable of resisting more than 100%NBS demands in both orthogonal directions of the building.
The upgrade will focus on replacing the whole of the existing church ceiling with a plywood diaphragm to bring the roof bracing to above 100% NBS. The roof trusses will also be re-cladded with plywood and there will be minor work on fire safety and accessibility, including installation of emergency lighting.
On 7 June HCC told us that our structural strengthening documentation, prepared by our engineers New Zealand Consulting Engineers Limited, was to be reviewed by a peer reviewing engineer on their behalf. On 27 June Council requested further information but NZCEL needed a time extension due to high work loads and sickness, which HCC granted. Following a meeting between NZCEL, HCC and their peer reviewer on 27 August, NZCEL must provide additional calculations and information, which they completed and sent to HCC in the first week of December. HCC's consultant responded to this extra work with a further series of questions just before Christmas, to which NZCEL responded with further calculations, justifications and explanations on 31 January 2020.We now confidently wait yet again for HCC's response.
The Seismic Review Committee Report to our Annual General Meeting, 31 March 2019 is HERE
Progress Report at 25 November 2018.
At our last update on 29 July we told you that our engineers had completed their Detailed Seismic Assessment(DSA) of our Church building and that they don’t consider the church earthquake prone, so we gave their Assessment to Hutt City Council (HCC) and asked them to remove the EQ prone notice.
Unfortunately HCC are very conservative and wouldn’t do that. Colin Hickling and Murray met them and asked if they would give the assessment to their consultant engineers to evaluate before our engineers moved on to the design phase. They agreed, but advised us that they'd still require a review of the final design and analysis at Building Consent stage and the new as Analysis would be assessed against the earlier Sawrey analysis held by Council. The options were discussed within our SRC and with our Engineers, who were confident of their analysis. We therefore instructed our engineers to carry on with designing plywood bracing for the church roof, in accordance with their analysis. Their completion date for the design was early November but a drawing set for comments was finally delivered on Thursday last. We will take a few days to get to grips with the details and have a committee meeting this week to discuss them.
We then expect to move on to applying to Council for a building consent. The architect assisting in the old proposal has agreed to provide services as needed for this new solution. He will help with the permit application as the process is complex and he can also help with some peripherals like fire egress that we’ll need to include in the application.
Council tell us they’ll give our whole package of analysis and design to one of their consultant engineers to evaluate, and hopefully we’ll get a Building Consent. With only a month to Christmas and given the Consent process takes a month off over that period our current timing expects that Council’s consideration will not commence until the New Year. At that point we expect to be able to go out to tender again. But as mentioned earlier, Council are very conservative, so let’s not count our chickens. But God and Council willing we’ll eventually get there, and with a project that we can afford.
We’ve also been working on some other issues, including acoustic testing on the existing church building, so that we can measure the effect of the building work on acoustics, but our main focus is to get the building earthquake resistant up to 67% or 100% of the National Building Standard. Then we can assess our finances and maybe think about some ‘nice to dos’.
Colin Jon & Murray, Seismic Review Committee.
At 29 July 2018:
Today Reverend Karl announced that our Consulting Engineers NZCEL have completed a Detailed Seismic Assessment of our Church and this has been delivered to Hutt City Council with a request to remove their "Earthquake Prone" notice. More detail is HERE.
Since we decided no to accept the tender for strengthening work in October 2017 we have formed a Seismic Review Committee (SRC) to review all aspects of the project. Hutt City Council (HCC) have also become involved and have communicated with the Diocese Property Manager. Both are very supportive of our progress so far.
A second engineering consultant, New Zealand Consulting Engineers Ltd (NZCEL), are now working on the project. They have delivered an Analysis of our Church building using computer based modelling that indicated a better inherent building strength than the earlier work. Their 3D computer model avoids over simplification and better recognizes all parts of the building contributing to its seismic performance. The same consultants have recently done similar work for the Anglican Cathedral and St Francis de Sales church in Wellington and in both cases the conclusions were positive for the parishes and largely accepted by Wellington City Council.
Some on-site checking of existing bracing above the ceiling in the church was carried out on May 2, photos below to enhance the reliability of the analysis.
NZCEL delivered a Detailed Seismic Assessment (DSA) in June which has now been finalised and delivered to HCC who are likely to require it to be peer reviewed. Once agreement is reached between the peer reviewer and our consultant, it is hoped that HCC agree to remove their present “earthquake prone” notice - although removal may be subject to some recommended work to strengthen the roof bracing being undertaken first. We now await Council's response. Provided HCC substantially accept the DSA total remedial works should be substantially less than the tender we had last year.
Because on 20 March HCC notified us that the Church is earthquake prone and rated it at 10% of the National Building Standard. In response Reverend Karl and our Wardens decided that we shall temporarily cease using the Church and move to the Church Hall. Rev. Karl's Palm Sunday sermon has more detail on this. A copy of the HCC notice is here.
The SRC report to the 8 April AGM is HERE. This report was updated with Power Point slides. The slides and some additional ones are HERE.
Further detail on progress will be available soon.
Click to see captions and larger versions of the photo gallery.
You can Contribute to our Earthquake Strengthening Fundraising Project HERE.
Earlier Information on Our Earthquake Strengthening Project
The information below should be read in the context of progress with the project when the material was written.
As at Christmas 2017:
We have had Engineering Drawings prepared and the project was recently put out to tender. Vestry decided not to accept the only tender that we received and this decision was agreed to by a Special Members' Meeting on Sunday, 29 October 2017.
Vestry are now in the process of creating and empowering a Seismic Review Committee that will support our Church Wardens as we continue on our EQ journey and explore future options for our church.
For more background see the articles on our strengthening journey in the November 2017 Building Bridges magazine. Note that the articles on pages 4 to 7 there preceeded the decision to reject the tender.
We have had Engineering Drawings prepared and the project was recently put out to tender. Vestry decided not to accept the only tender that we received and this decision was agreed to by a Special Members' Meeting on Sunday, 29 October 2017.
Vestry are now in the process of creating and empowering a Seismic Review Committee that will support our Church Wardens as we continue on our EQ journey and explore future options for our church.
For more background see the articles on our strengthening journey in the November 2017 Building Bridges magazine. Note that the articles on pages 4 to 7 there preceeded the decision to reject the tender.
Read the Building Strengthening Project Brochure From March 2015, for an overview of the initial projected costs and funding. Note that the financial information there has been superseded.
Read a 2015 Hutt News article about the Fundraising Launch Function .
Inside (May 2018) and Outside (September 2016) Roof investigations.
Structural Strengthening views of model, original design.
The Strengthening Project Inaugural Dinner and Presentation.
