NZIA and Master Builders welcome clearer, risk-based EPB system

29 September 2025

Master Builders and Te Kāhui Whaihanga New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA) welcome today’s announcement refocusing the Earthquake-Prone Building (EPB) system toward a clearer, risk-based approach that keeps people safe while making remediation more workable for owners and communities.

Removing the New Building Standard (NBS) percentage as the trigger for EPB status addresses a long-standing concern that an overly blunt tool was driving disproportionate costs and uncertainty. This is not an exact science. The same building can receive vastly different ratings depending on the engineer and methodology used.

We have long called for a system focused on addressing risk, and with nuance. The requirements between a building in Auckland and Wellington for example - does not need to be the same. The Property Council estimates billions of dollars have been tied up in unnecessary or disproportionate strengthening. Focusing on genuine life-safety risks, including targeted retrofit for multi-storey concrete buildings and sensible treatment of unreinforced masonry, is a more practical way to prioritise the right work in the right places.

For medium and high seismic zones, today’s direction should give much-needed certainty for owners, architects and builders to plan and invest with confidence. Equally, enabling councils to grant extensions of up to 15 years, and decoupling seismic work from mandatory concurrent upgrades to fire and accessibility provisions for like-for-like seismic alterations, will help unlock stalled projects while maintaining life-safety as the top priority.

Master Builders and NZIA’s members have already shown leadership in some of New Zealand’s most significant seismic upgrades and resilient new builds. These projects demonstrate that when architects and builders work together, we can deliver both new builds and retrofit solutions that are not only structurally sound but also preserve heritage and design integrity. We welcome this announcement and look forward to working together to ensure the new system is implemented in a way that delivers both safety and quality outcomes.