Quake Work On Council Buildings Cost Millions

Earthquake strengthening is needed for 10 of the Nelson City Council’s buildings and could cost nearly $2 million, with $2.4m extra on one of them, councillors have learned.

The council should spend between $227,000 and $417,000 to strengthen the earthquake-prone Stoke Memorial Hall within five years, a new report says.

It also details strengthening work costing $1.166m to $1.951m to bring the 10 under-code council buildings up to either 34 per cent or 67 per cent of the National Building Standard (NBS) – plus another $2.4m for ‘‘one-off maintenance’’ on the Plant and Food building on Wakefield Quay that Nelson MP Nick Smith has earmarked for a future marine centre.

The report to the council’s works and infrastructure committee from engineering team leader Mel Large was commissioned to provide a comprehensive update on detailed seismic assessments and to set direction from the committee on what to do next.

Large reported that 38 detailed seismic assessments have been done over the past four years on buildings with an initial assessment of under 34 per cent.

Of those, 28 required no further action under the Building Act.

Ten required strengthening to meet the required minimum of 34 per cent, or demolition.

This list does not include the Trafalgar Centre, which has been handled separately and has a $13m strengthening and rebuild initial estimate.

QUAKE COSTS

Students Make Room For Caring Project

Helping to build a new counselling cottage for the Nelson Women's Centre was a "privilege" for carpentry student Diane Te Hana.

The counselling cottage, was built by Te Hana and her fellow students at NMIT and delivered by truck and crane to the site last week.  Te Hana and some of the other students were at the centre to watch their "Baby" arrive at its new home.

The room was needed as space was tight at the centre which had two counselling rooms and six counsellors needing to use them.

The new room would be used for both counselling and as a workspace.

The centre had received "fantastic" support from local businesses donating materials or funds, including Absolute Energy, Freeman Roofing, Port Nelson and Insite.

Move To Solve Old Problem On Island

A Best Island family has been served a notice by the district council to resolve the community’s historic access problem to the island.

The council served a Notice of Desire on the Ashton family in early June in an attempt to secure land for a public road reserve and resolve the decades-long ‘‘grace and favour’’ arrangement, which sees residents cross private land to access their homes.

The council’s property services manager, Jim Frater, said the family had three months to respond to the notice, which gave the council the right to compulsorily purchase the land if agreement could not be reached by next month.

The two landowners have offered their land for the road for $450,000, but previous council valuations estimate the cost of land and building the road to be $200,000.

Residents, who will meet a large portion of the cost of the road, said the landowners’ offer was too high and they would be willing to pay $7000 per household rather than $15,000, with $170,000 going towards land purchase. Eighty per cent of residents agreed on the amount, which is still more than the amount the council expected of them.

Frater said the council would review the situation in September. It was not compulsory for the council to purchase the land, he said.

Many Hurdles Overcome To Build On Steep Cliff Face

In a remarkable tale of persistence and vision, a steep, scrub-covered bank right above Nelson’s harbour will soon be a dream come true for a Christchurch couple.

That’s where they are going to build a new home, helped by an Auckland architect used to difficult sites.

A most unusual section, and one of the last available on the western Port Hills where every scrap of land seems to have a house perched on it, it will also have a rare address: number 0 Fifeshire Cres.

‘‘Number 1 was already taken,’’ said Bayleys agent Jeremy Matthews, who handled the sale. ‘‘It must be one of the only zero addresses in the country.’’

The spot, just before the turning circle on the dead-end section of Fifeshire Cres, looks straight across to the Cut and the distant mountains. Matthews said it was close enough to hear the waves and smell the seaweed – a ‘‘million dollar experience’’ in an area covered in million-dollar views.

The story gets better. For many years, the section, directly above the Harbour Light Bistro, had no owner and no title. A Wakefield Quay resident who lived below the steep face got interested and after two decades of searching its history and work with a Nelson lawyer, was able to obtain the title and begin paying rates on it.

Their costs also included an expensive geotechnical assessment.

Matthews said the rateable value was only $25,000. But the land eventually sold for $220,000.

Parking Changes Trigger Protest

New parking restrictions at Richmond Mall are being enforced from this week in an effort to stop people from using the busy car park all day and make shopping easier for customers.

Mall manager Belinda de Clercq said the new rules, introduced this week, are standard practice around the country and designed to make shopping more convenient for customers.

She said the parking limit had been increased from two to three hours and those who overstayed would be fined $65.

The move was in response to a survey that found up to 40 per cent of vehicles using the car park were staying all day.

However, Specsavers optometrist Jan Rae said mall staff were also being penalised.

Rae, of Wakefield, said there were no public transport options for people travelling from anywhere other than Nelson and mall staff were having to park their vehicles in residential streets.

Rae said there was a parking shortage in Richmond and if mall staff were clogging up the streets with their vehicles it might force Tasman District Council to tackle the problem.

Property Market Remains Strong

Demand in the Nelson housing market was strong and prices remained steady during July, the latest QV statistics show.

The latest monthly QV House Price Index shows that houses in Nelson had an average sale price of $414,989 in July, a 0.7 per cent increase over the past three months and a 3.3 per cent year-on year increase.

QV registered valuer Craig Russell said the slight increase was postive for Nelson, where demand for property was strong. ‘‘A steady increase [in Nelson] is definitely better than what we are seeing in the likes of Auckland. It’s much more sustainable.’’

He also noted that interest from property investors and first-home buyers from outside Nelson had increased in the past three to four months.

‘‘Investors get a good yield on lower-value properties [in Nelson], and historically it’s been a popular place to purchase property,’’ he said.

Meanwhile, Tasman houses had an average sale price of $422,913 in July, a 1.3 per cent increase over the past three months and a 2.2 per cent year-on year increase.

Russell said it would be interesting to see if current economic factors affecting the country – including migration, dairy prices and interest rates – would have an impact on the Nelson region’s housing market over the coming months.

New Call To Speed Up Burner Changes

A dramatic improvement in air quality hasn’t dented respiratory admissions at Nelson Hospital, leading a city councillor to call for woodburner changes to be hurried up.

Instead, there has been a gradual increase in admissions as the Nelson City Council’s clean air rules have taken hold, getting woodburners and open fireplaces out of hundreds of homes.

This was raised by councillor Ian Barker during discussion on a strategy and environment report at yesterday’s meeting of the planning and regulatory committee.

Some of it was staggering, he said, particularly that from 2001-13, while the council had done a ‘‘tremendously good job’’ in reducing air pollution, there had been a continuing gradual rise in hospital admissions for respiratory illnesses. He had expected to see the opposite.

Barker said the council should move quickly to allow new cleaner-burning woodburners, and that the lack of an improvement in respiratory admission figures had to be taken into account when the council worked through its air quality plan change.

Committee chair councillor Brian McGurk also attended the public meeting.

He said what he took from it was that the council needed to clearly communicate the process it had to go through to alter its clean air regulations.

The council was faced with an ‘‘incredibly complex’’ piece of legislation, he said, but had brought back its review from 2019 to next year.

Modeller Offers DIY Solution To Pond Issue

Nelson Man Anton Hyman is sick of talking about the algae and weed in the Modellers’ Pond at Tahunanui and now he’s doing something about it.

Hyman, a 71-year-old member of the Nelson Society of Modellers, was hard at work on Sunday morning, using a household rake to drag weed and muck from the pond.

The Nelson City Council decided in June to spend up to $600,000 on modifying the pond to control the algae and weed problem, but only if private funders can be found to cover the balance of the estimated $1.2 million job.

A modellers’ society spokeswoman said Hyman’s view was his own. The issue was far more complex than he was conveying.

Thought For The Week

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.

C. S. Lewis