Victoria Day Trip
Feb 2nd, 2013 by lena2013
We arrived back in Vancouver Friday night, after a day trip to Victoria where we received a full project overview from VCHT. Our team will be assisting in conducting a pilot project, screening and assessing the seismic risk of heritage buildings located within a target area of the downtown core of Victoria, BC. The target area currently consists of the 500 block of Johnson Street, and may be expanded if the pilot proves successful. Our trip also allowed us to meet many of the people behind the project, namely:
Catherine Umland— VCHT executive director
Brandon Paxton— Masters Student at UBC
Rob Johns—Emergency Coordinator for the City of Victoria
Stephanie Blazey – GIS technician for the City of Victoria
Leon Plett – Read Jones Christoffersen Consulting Engineers Ltd.
Chris Ryzuk—Geotechnical engineering and committee member of VCHT
The Victoria Civic Heritage Trust (VCHT) is a non-profit charitable organization that was established in 1989 by the City of Victoria. They work with the City to develop, administer and financially support programs that preserve and enhance the heritage buildings and culture of Victoria. This is accomplished through monetary incentives in the form of tax exceptions and grants to building owners that promote the seismic retrofitting of heritage buildings.
The desire to collect information on the city’s heritage buildings, most of which are unreinforced masonry buildings (URM), is directly the result of the devastation which occurred in Christchurch, New Zealand in February, 2011. The city shares many similarities with Victoria, including seismicity, architecture and construction styles, and is a reminder that resilience can only be achieved through mitigation.
There are over 200 heritage buildings in Victoria, however only approximately 25% of them have received seismic retrofits. We will be going back to Victoria on the 17th to conduct screening reviews for the project. The desired outcomes are:
- To create a set of data that describes the seismic conditions and inventory of heritage buildings from the screening process
- To develop guidelines to use in a parapet and façade bracing pilot program
- To gather information for GIS mapping for the City of Victoria
The potential difficulties that we foresee impeding our ability to conduct thorough assessments of properties are time, building owners, and use of buildings.
We received a tour of an ongoing seismic upgrade for a URM building by Leon Plett, of RJC consulting engineers. Afterwards, we toured a completed project and saw the significant improvements between heritage buildings before and after their retrofits.
The trip was highly informative and we would like to thank the VCHT and all other presenters for their time. We look forward to our next trip to Victoria.
Glad you had a good visit in Victoria. I am interested in the statistic that 25% of heritage buildings have been retrofitted. I understand this is approximate, but it would be good to provide a source for this estimate. It would also be good to find out what types of retrofits have been used for these buildings – have all been fully retrofitted with supplementary in-plane bracing, or have some simply received bracing for parapets and out-of-plane walls?
I also encourage you to consider the challenges of initiating seismic retrofit programs in cities like Victoria and Vancouver where housing affordability is a paramount concern. How do you require building owners to invest in costly retrofits while encouraging the development of low income housing alternatives?
Thank you for your strong interest in the project! The data you collect will give the City of Victoria the information they need to develop effective seismic mitigation policies.
KJE
Hi Team,
Great summary of the trip. I’m looking forward to learning more about what you learned from the experts at VCHT.
Things are going to move quickly now. It will be good to get the travel arrangements for the 17th set up. I hope the next blog will report on what you have accomplished in preparation for the overnight trip, including how you plan to manage the potential difficulties of the project should any become evident. Also, regarding the desired outcomes, are these for the entire project? (in which case, which are you responsible for and what is the deliverable.)
Looks like good progress!
SN
Dear Professor Elwood,
Regarding your question about the statistic of the percentage of buildings having received retrofits, this number was directly taken from the presentations we received in Victoria. The percentage encompasses all retrofits, regardless of the percentage of code they satisfy.
Your concern regarding housing affordability for tenants and building owners is valid. The reality is that funding is required for any retrofit and that heritage buildings are highly coveted. While heritage buildings may not be an ideal solution to provide low-income housing, the tax incentives and grants offered by the VCHT aid in maintaining the affordability of these buildings. One of the buildings we visited was being converted into micro-housing, adding affordable housing in the downtown core.
To Professor Nesbit:
The outcomes we have outlined are tentative. We are currently working with the VCHT and Brandon to finalize specific details of our work. We will keep you updated on our progress!