Minister Announces Earthquake-Prone Building System Review
3 October 2025
Earlier this week, Minister Penk announced proposed changes to the legislation concerning the Earthquake Prone Building (EPB) system. BCCG was fortunate to be the representative of the unit title residential apartments sector on the ministerial Seismic Review Steering Group.
In his letter to the Seismic Review Steering Group, the Minister said:
"The changes are designed to target buildings that pose the greatest risk to life safety, while improving affordability, reducing unnecessary costs and disruption, particularly in regional communities.
By enabling more cost-effective approaches to seismic strengthening, remediation will be more accessible for building owners than under the current settings.
The proposed changes include:
- Removing low-risk buildings and buildings in low seismic zones (Auckland, Northland and the Chatham Islands) from the EPB system.
- Introducing tiered risk mitigation requirements, making use of new engineering methodologies, based on location and building type.
- Allowing building owners to apply for deadline extensions, provided they can meet key criteria.
- Reducing barriers to seismic strengthening by removing the requirement for concurrent fire and accessibility upgrades."
The government will also replace the percentage New Building Standard (%NBS) rating with criteria focusing on buildings that pose genuine life-safety risks in medium and high seismic zones, such as concrete buildings over three storeys and unreinforced masonry structures.
This means that many buildings in certain parts of the country will no longer be EPB buildings, whilst others will now be because they are in a high-risk zone. Around the country, there will be buildings that still require seismic upgrading in full or in part. In particular, buildings with Unreinforced Masonry (URM) will fall into that category of buildings requiring remediation.
It is important to appreciate that this is an announcement about a proposed change to the Building Act 2004. It is not yet law. So those existing buildings that are in any area of NZ that have a low NBS and have started remediation works or are considering doing so will need to continue their work until the changes come into law.
What the announcement has yet to disclose is what barriers to remediation or incentives to remediate are being offered by the Government to assist owners of those buildings which require remediation work. One barrier or point of assistance is the last of the bullet points above. We are still looking to be advised of what other assistance is available to apartment owners.
The full report is now available for review here. Any questions on the report and announcement can be directed to BCCG National President, Tim Jones at national.president@bccg.org.nz or to bccg@bccg.org.nz
