A number of approximately 20,000 buildings in Bucharest must be pre-assessed in terms of seismic risk, the capital’s mayor, Nikusor Dan, announced on Tuesday.

These are 20,252 blocks with at least three floors, built before 1978. Representatives of the capital city hall and branch municipalities met on Tuesday to determine which buildings should be pre-assessed by the capital city hall and which will be returned to the branch municipalities.

Nikusor Dan suggested that the general mayor’s office conduct an assessment of the buildings that are part of the protected areas, and branch mayors to analyze the situation of construction within the relevant administrative-territorial units.

According to this distribution, the municipality should assess 4,149 collective buildings, the City Hall of Sector 1 – 1,186 buildings, the City Hall of Sector 2 – 3,938 buildings. City hall of sector 3 – 2040 objects, city hall of sector 4 – 2464 objects, city hall of sector 5 – 5552 objects, city hall of sector 6 – 919 objects.

“I am not saying that all these 20,000 buildings are at seismic risk. These are the properties that, according to the methodology, need to be evaluated to see where the examination begins and where we put money for consolidation. The purpose of today’s discussion was to present this information to the sectoral town halls – since, starting from the 2022 law, the Bucharest Town Hall and the sectoral town halls jointly have the authority to consolidate buildings with seismic risk – and see if we can share this task, according to a preliminary assessment, between the general mayor’s office and branch mayor’s offices; our proposal was that the general mayor’s office should build buildings that are in the protected areas, the historical areas of Bucharest, of which there are about 4,000, and the mayors of the sectors should build, each in their own sector, the buildings that are outside the protected areas. “, Nikushor Dan said.

He noted that the branch municipalities will send an answer by mid-June, considering that the preliminary assessment of the building costs approximately 1,000 lei per building. At the end of June, the decision of the General Council should be adopted, on the basis of which the distribution of buildings to be assessed into sectors will be carried out. The General Aedile emphasized that it is very important that “all the documents are in order” before the actual unification begins.

“If you hurry and do the preliminary stages in six months, then the real consolidation can be done in 15 years. So my opinion on anything that means investment from the municipality is that it is better to lose two years in acquisition and design and get the job done in two years than to do acquisition and design in six months and do consolidation in 15 years. “, – said the mayor of the capital.

Referring to a proposal by Sector 3 Mayor Robert Negoitz, who supported the demolition of some buildings at seismic risk, except for historic ones, Nikushor Dan said the options would be determined after an evaluation.

“This is a possibility that cannot be ruled out. We do and are required by this methodology to evaluate all approximately 20,000 buildings that meet certain criteria in the methodology. This estimate tells us where to start. Next, when we really start and decide that intervention is necessary, demolition and reconstruction or demolition and relocation are options,” he said.

The executive director of the Municipal Authority for Association of Buildings with Seismic Risk (AMCCRS) Rezvan Muntianu stated that during the assessment, data is collected regarding: structural type of the building, height regime, number of stairs, year of construction, cadastral data, purpose of the building.

“Specifically, we expect that the Municipal Department of Consolidation will begin a visual assessment for consolidation no later than the beginning of September. We have already developed technical specifications, defined directions. We will start the procedure in the next period. We estimate that at the beginning of September, at the end of August, we can have a signed contract,” Munteanu said.

He showed that currently 106 buildings in the capital are in various stages of consolidation, especially in the preparatory part of the project. He clarified that ten construction sites initiated by the municipal company Consolidări during the previous administration are “blocked”. (Agerpress)