Any building under 34 percent is quake-prone – the risk of dying in such a building in any given year is between a fifth and a half the risk of dying in a car crash.<\/p>\n
Brook’s two top floors – added in 1994 – are much lighter than the underlying structure, so lack flexibility in a quake.<\/p>\n
The ministry is proposing to strengthen Brook block to just 35 percent by early next year as a stopgap measure.<\/p>\n
Julia Davidson.\u00a0<\/span>Photo:\u00a0Supplied \/<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n But principal Julia Davidson said the school wanted it pulled down and that it would be more cost-effective to start from scratch.<\/p>\n “As taxpayers, we think it is a waste of money” to go ahead with short-term strengthening, she said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n School staff and wh\u0101nau were due to meet officials on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n The ministry told\u00a0Nine-to-Noon\u00a0<\/i>on Tuesday that its recommendation that students keep using Brook in the meantime, was different than it evacuating its own Wellington headquarters for seismic reasons two years ago – because each building was different.<\/p>\n That is true: The school block is rated a more important structure than the headquarters. Brook is an Importance Level 3 (IL3) building, versus just IL2 for the office block housing the Ministry of Education. This is due to the Wellington Girls’ block having over 300 children in it on a school day.<\/p>\n It must therefore be assessed against a higher standard.<\/p>\n Wellington Girls’ College Brook block had two floors added in 1994.\u00a0<\/span>Photo:\u00a0Wellington Girls College<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n When the ministry moved out of its headquarters, it did so after getting a Targeted Seismic Assessment (TSA), which returned a 25-30 percent NBS rating on crucial parts like floors.<\/p>\n Similarly, it wanted the school to perform only a TSA, as opposed to a full Detailed Seismic Assessment (DSA), saying the latter would take longer, Davidson said.<\/p>\n The school board instead paid for a DSA, which it received last week, triggering yesterday’s decision to evacuate students.<\/p>\n Paying for a full DSA had been worth it for peace of mind; staff had been full of questions about which parts of the block were weak, Davidson said.<\/p>\n “It is really reassuring to know everything has been looked at.”<\/p>\n The ministry’s TSA on the building it evacuated recommended it do a DSA on it, “to ensure that all elements are reviewed and assessed prior to any strengthening design”.<\/p>\n VIA RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wellington Girls’ College says the Ministry of Education is proposing a building project that is a waste of taxpayers’ money. The school already had a massive shortfall of teaching space before it discovered\u00a0its biggest classroom block, Brook, with 27 teaching spaces, is rated just 15 percent of new building standard\u00a0or NBS. Any building under 34 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,208,174,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-lifestyle","category-nz-news","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10972,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10969\/revisions\/10972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n