Sage Eugenie: Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:10056. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Chair. Tēnā koutou katoa e Te Whare. I am very pleased to take a call on the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill. I would like to talk in this call about heritage buildings. Paul Foster-Belloutlined in his contribution clause 23 and the new section 133AT which outlines how the owners of our most significant heritage buildings—those with category 1 status or listed in the National Historic Landmarks List—can apply to councils for an extension of up to 10 years to strengthen an earthquake-prone building.The Wellington City Council is much further ahead than many other councils obviously because of the earthquake risk in the city in identifying earthquake-prone buildings. It has identified 684 pre-1976 buildings in the city. Of these 137 have heritage listing but only 21 have category 1 status so they would qualify for an extension of time under clause 23.It was certainly a major concern of submitters—the impact of this bill on heritage buildings. One of the submitters Phillimore Properties noted that a large number of quite beautiful heritage buildings were on the market because their owners could not face the cost of earthquake strengthening and because in cities like Auckland the land values are often worth more than the buildings. So there is a very real risk of heritage buildings being demolished in the wake of the legislation.That would be a tragedy for cities and towns across New Zealand because of the contribution that many of our older buildings make to their character and identity. You only have to think of areas like Ōāmaru Invercargill and the loss of heritage in Christchurch. That is one reason that the Green Party is supporting the bill but we are also supporting Ron Mark’s Supplementary Order Paper 160 because instead of weakening the regulatory regime that the bill sets out to provide as one of Mr Seymour’s Supplementary Order Papers does we have got to provide more incentives to the owners of heritage buildings so that there is some recognition of the benefit that the community gets from the protection of that heritage character and to assist them with the costs of strengthening.Certainly the larger metropolitan councils like Christchurch and Auckland have already been quite proactive. In Wellington the council set up a $400000 fund for built heritage which is likely to be allocated on an annual basis to assist with the cost of earthquake strengthening. Wellington City Council also offer rates relief if a building is left vacant while that strengthening occurs and offers some rebates on building consents. Similarly in Christchurch there is a built-heritage fund to assist with conservation costs which can include earthquake strengthening. But this is a relatively small amount of money given the many building owners who will be affected.So Mr Mark’s Supplementary Order Paper 160 does highlight the quite significant gap in Government policy here and I would welcome some comments from the Minister in the chair in terms of whether the Government is making any progress in considering some incentives for building owners for earthquake-strengthening costs associated with heritage buildings. Because as Property Council New Zealand has pointed out a building owner can claim a tax deduction for a building that collapses with the risk of quite significant injury or potentially death but it cannot claim a tax deduction for the costs of strengthening a building so that that injury does not occur.So what we are seeing at the current time is those costs of providing incentives to the owners of heritage and other buildings falling on local councils and the Government not stepping in to actually help fill that gap. The Minister has said it would be premature to address tax reforms before the policy provisions around earthquake strengthening are in place and before the bill has passed. We think there could be a tax working party set up to address this issue because obviously tax legislation was written before the whole issue of earthquake strengthening was considered. As I understand it at the moment you cannot claim a tax deduction for earthquake strengthening because the Inland Revenue Department regards that as a capital expense because it is enhancing the building. But once this bill passes it will be a legal requirement.Earthquake strengthening is actually providing for the functioning of the building so it should not be regarded as an enhancement. Even if Mr Mark’s Supplementary Order Paper is voted down because it is ruled out of order as the Chair of the Committee noted because this is an omnibus bill—well it is not an omnibus bill sorry—we think the Supplementary Order Paper is very timely in highlighting a major policy gap and the fact that the Government needs to be giving some incentive particularly for the owners of heritage buildings to strengthen them. We have seen in Christchurch the very infamous comments of the Minister Gerry Brownlee calling a lot of our heritage buildings old dungers and that leading to their demolition after the Canterbury earthquakes. This Supplementary Order Paper we think is a very useful initiative in highlighting the policy gap.In the rest of the call I would just like to highlight that we are very pleased with the changes that were made in the Local Government and Environment Committee and I have talked before about the very good process that both Ministers and Scott Simpson the chair undertook to ensure that there were good changes made. The Green Party opposed this bill as introduced because it had far too generous exemptions for building owners for meeting the current fire and disability access requirements when undertaking earthquake strengthening and we pushed very hard for changes here.There were submitters who were very concerned about this. The Human Rights Commission said that it was just highlighting that we were undermining our good human rights record by this retrograde step of not ensuring that those disability access requirements were put in place. There were a lot of submissions that presented evidence of heritage and other buildings that had been upgraded to improve accessibility without diminishing their heritage fabric and there was recognition by groups like Age Concern that making sure that buildings are accessible promotes the well-being of all of the population. Whether it is parents with pushchairs or senior citizens it does not just provide a privilege for people who are in wheelchairs but it promotes well-being for all of us and it ensures that there are equal rights for all. So this change in the bill has been quite critical to the Green Party now supporting the bill and its progress.There will be some other comments I would like to make later but we support the Supplementary Order Paper that Ron Mark has lodged and we are very pleased with the changes around disability access. Thank you.