Two engineers have been fined, and one of them suspended for three months, over a botched car parking building that cost the Tauranga City Council millions of dollars.<\/p>\n
The council abandoned the nine-storey Harington Street Transport Hub project in 2020 after discovering structural design deficiencies.<\/p>\n
The council spent $25 million and sold the building for a dollar.<\/p>\n
Engineering New Zealand investigated its complaints against three engineers.<\/p>\n
It has now fined James Knight and suspended him from its register for three months, fined Andrew Thompson, and censured both of them. The third engineer is appealing.<\/p>\n
The investigation found mistakes and gaps in earthquake risk calculations and design reviews.<\/p>\n
“The alterations Mr Thompson made to the ramp beam connections crossing the separation plane created a weakness that in an earthquake, may have led to local failure of the ramps,” said the decision summary of the disciplinary committee.<\/p>\n
Knight did a design review and identified several deficiencies, but then signed a Producer Statement that things were compliant, and the council consented to it in 2018.<\/p>\n
Consultants went on to find 39 defects, many structural, and tried to come up with an overall fix.<\/p>\n
“The council abandoned [it] due to the significant costs that had by then been incurred and the substantial costs that would be associated with remediation,” the summary said.<\/p>\n
Thompson, who had over 30 years experience and an unblemished record, had admitted being negligent with designs that had “readily identifiable errors”. The committee found “a serious lack of competence”.<\/p>\n
He was fined $4500 and ordered to pay $20,000 costs. His application for permanent name suppression was turned down.<\/p>\n
“Mr Thompson does not present an ongoing risk to the public.”<\/p>\n
Structural design sign-offs rely on peer reviews by other engineers.<\/p>\n
The summary said Knight’s approach was to check some, but not all of a design, then if they identified any issues, to accept the designer’s word they had been addressed.<\/p>\n
At Harington, under “time pressure”, Knight found issues with ramp reinforcing, vertical loads and collector beam connections, but did not follow up properly, and missed other design problems.<\/p>\n
“It ought to have been very apparent to Mr Knight during his peer review that the Revised Design was seriously flawed.”<\/p>\n
He admitted his sign-off was done in an incompetent manner.<\/p>\n
Knight also had an unblemished record. He had done professional development since Harington and the committee judged he “no longer presents as a significant risk to the public”.<\/p>\n
He was fined $2000 with costs of $40,000, and suspended from the Chartered Professional Engineer register for three months. He did not seek permanent name suppression.<\/p>\n