Roger Sutton: Providing confidence | Canterbury Opinion | Local Voices from Canterbury, New Zealand

For some months months now CERA has overseen works in the CBD red zone, New Zealand's largest work site, and I'm amazed at the progress towards recovery given the complexity of the task.  

By April next year we expect the CBD red zone to be largely gone, the outcome of an extraordinary amount of planning and effort.  

One of my responsibilities as CERA chief executive is to provide confidence to greater Christchurch communities. An important area of my focus in the next few months will be around public confidence in buildings within the CBD red zone which have not been demolished.  

These buildings will progressively become available to the general public as the cordon is reduced and people are going to want to know the buildings are acceptably safe to enter, work and live in. It's up to non-residential (commercial) building and large multi-unit residential building owners in the CBD red zone to provide the public with that measure of confidence in the buildings they own by submitting detailed structural engineering evaluations to  CERA.  

The programme of works may seem at one level to be all about nuts and bolts, but those working towards the recovery of the CBD red zone never lose sight of the main goal: the maximum amount of good, the maximum amount of safety, for the maximum amount of people, in a timely manner.  

That's an approach I would encourage CBD building owners to take on board as the CBD red zone is reduced and progressively becomes available to the public.  

Under the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act 2011, CERA can gather information about structures affected by the Canterbury earthquakes. If you are an owner of a non-residential (commercial) building or large multi-unit residential building in the CBD red zone the chances are you will either have received a letter from CERA asking you to provide CERA with a detailed structural engineering evaluation, or you will soon.  

The letters will be sent out in a staggered way throughout greater Christchurch over the coming months, but at this stage we are focusing on owners of buildings in the CBD red zone. Providing this information will enable CERA to have a level of confidence that structural issues have been addressed.  

Don't forget, if the building you own in the CBD red zone has an old Civil Defence placard this only represented a basic safety assessment at the time of an earthquake or significant aftershock, and expired on July 12, 2011.  

A detailed structural engineering evaluation is a critical step building owners must take to restore public confidence as the CBD red zone cordon is reduced. It is entirely the building owner's responsibility to make sure their building has had the appropriate checks and any necessary work completed on their building.  

Meanwhile, it's great to see the Cashel Mall Restart the Heart Trust project is on track for opening in late October. This project involves the reopening of the flagship department store Ballantynes and a new temporary retail hub being established in converted shipping containers.