Rotorua’s Blue Baths could have remained open, former leaseholder says

The former leaseholder of Rotorua's 'iconic' Blue Baths says new government advice shows the council could have left the building open while a plan was made for its future.

However, Former Blue Baths leaseholder Jo Romanes says now the 89-year-old building has been unoccupied for 18 months it is no longer in a fit state for the public.

The council said the building was not a priority at the moment and public safety was of primary concern in the closure decision.

In January 2021 the category one heritage-listed building was closed due to concerns about its structural integrity.

It followed an Initial Seismic Assessment that found the building to be earthquake prone at 15 percent New Building Standard (NBS) - less than a quarter of the standard of a new building. The NBS rating was later confirmed by a Detailed Seismic Assessment.

The decision was also informed by a swarm of earthquakes in the region on 25 January.

Last month, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) released guidance that most seismically vulnerable buildings were not imminently dangerous and could remain occupied while seismic remediation work was planned, funded and undertaken.

In a ministry statement, it said the guidance addressed "common misconceptions around how the New Building Standard should be used" and clarified there was no legal requirement to close a building based solely on a low NBS rating.

Ministry building performance and engineering manager Dr Dave Gittings said compared to most business-as-usual risks, earthquakes were a low probability, and occupancy decisions needed to consider the likelihood of an earthquake and temporary mitigation measures that could be employed.

"An NBS rating is not a predictor of building failure in an earthquake and buildings with low NBS ratings are not imminently dangerous.

"Understanding the relative vulnerability of different building elements, potential consequences of failure of these elements, and options to mitigate that risk, is more important than the overall NBS rating for a building."

The statement said buildings with an NBS percentage of less than 34 percent were earthquake-prone and building owners were required to remediate their building within a specific timeframe, but buildings could remain occupied during that time.

New buildings were designed with a one-in-a-million annual fatality risk due to earthquake, compared to an estimated one in 700,000 for flying a plane or one in 20,000 for driving a car.

The estimated fatality risk in a building under 34 percent NBS was about one in 40,000 to 100,000.

Romanes said the ministry advice had created a "pathway forward" for owners of low-NBS buildings.

In her view, it provided an opportunity for councils to have a bit more confidence and take more ownership to "just not go around putting fences up everywhere".

When the Blue Baths closed in January 2021 the council told her it was "only interested in zero risk", she said.

"Life is all about risk, it's just about managing it."

She also understood public organisations were wary of liability in the case something did go wrong, but in her view the guidance gave councils some licence to take managed risks, she said.

Romanes believed the Blue Baths, which her company operated primarily as an events venue, could have remained open while a plan for its future and strengthening was actively progressed.

"The building was already in a pretty dilapidated state because we were winding down and preparing for revitalisation. The council hadn't done any significant maintenance on it in several years. I'd stopped doing too much as well, as we neared the end of our lease. "

However, now it had been "sitting" for 18 months, Romanes believed it would have "deteriorated more" and would not be fit for the public.

In her opinion: "It is disturbing that the fence has been up for 18 months and the council are quite openly and unashamedly saying they don't have any plan."

She had spent about $250,000 on the revitalisation plans for the building in 2019 "in good faith" and at the invitation of the council, and that resulted in a plan for the building's future, she said.

Upon the project's completion, the building would meet seismic code and operate as a "totally unique heritage venue" with capacity for 1000 people, which Romanes believed would bring great economic benefit to the region.

A resource consent had been submitted and the plan had heritage experts' blessing, she said.

"All that work's been done."

In her view: "The council need to be looking actively at how to fund it.

"This building should be on the list. The work for the way forward has been done, now they just need to take ownership and commit."

On Monday, Rotorua mayor Steve Chadwick said she was sure the future of the "iconic" building would come to the new council to consider, but "other priorities take financial and operational precedence right now".

She said that included the Rotorua Museum, also closed and under construction for strengthening and redevelopment.

"The Blue Baths has always been important to Rotorua as part of its visitor destination offering and we'd all dearly love to see it re-opening at some stage."

She said while consideration of the Ministry's guidance was an operational matter, she understood decisions to close - or re-open - buildings were "always very carefully weighed up, with public safety at the forefront".

Rotorua Lakes Council organisational enablement deputy chief executive Thomas Colle said the Blue Baths would likely arise as part of the next Long-term Plan, when the council would consider and set the work programme for the 2023-2033 period.

"We are currently focused on other priority projects and work but given its very low seismic rating and taking public safety into consideration, it's unlikely we would consider re-opening the Blue Baths at this time."

Council officers were "always happy to speak with interested parties if they wish to discuss options with us directly", he said.

In July, following the guidance's release, chief executive Geoff Williams said decisions to close buildings were never taken lightly but public safety responsibility were the "primary consideration".

The council relied on expert assessment and had to balance to probability of an earthquake with the "level of potential consequences" if it did," he said.

"In the case of both the museum and the Blue Baths, in making our decisions we considered the level of consequences to be unacceptable."

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