A seismic assessment found the building was 10%-15% of new building standard.
Below 34% means a building is considered earthquake-prone.
Despite that, council staff, based on external advice, had decided to keep the building open until an upgrade could be carried out in 2019 or 2020.
Mr Cull said the decision weighed the risks against the disruption of closing the building for a year or more.
That would severely inconvenience a huge portion of the population, would prevent many sports from operating and be really bad look for the city and the council, he said.
''Given that there's stacks of buildings around that have yet to be upgraded ... the Edgar Centre is no worse this week than it was last week, so I guess we've got to work through it in a measured way, without bringing life as we know it to a halt,'' Mr Cull said.
The building was used by 650,000 people a year.
The decision contrasted with Invercargill City Council's stance. It closed three buildings - including the Southland Museum and Art Gallery - after they were found to be earthquake-prone.
Invercargill City Council chief executive Clare Hadley has said legislation required her to eliminate, or minimise, health and safety risks.
''Guidance from WorkSafe also states that 'For risks that have unacceptable outcomes, even if they have a low likelihood of occurring, look at credible worst case scenarios','' she said.
Mrs Hadley did not respond to requests for comment yesterday. A recent WorkSafe policy clarification said if a building was earthquake-prone, ''this doesn't necessarily mean it shouldn't be occupied''.
The Building Act gave Dunedin's building owners 15 years to complete assessments, and 35 years to rectify concerns, because the city was a low-risk seismic zone.
And, as long as owners were complying with the Building Act, WorkSafe would not ''enforce to a higher standard'' set out by the Health and Safety at Work Act.
''While the risk of harm to people in or around an earthquake-prone building is greater than an equivalent new building, this doesn't typically require short-term action.''
Mr Cull said the differing approaches in Dunedin and Invercargill ''comes down to the judgement of the people who made the decisions''.
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Cull said the differing approaches in Dunedin and Invercargill ''comes down to the judgement of the people who made the decisions''.- This man is all that and a bag of Chips now but will not front if the decision put him in the spot light for anything wrong, in true Cull form he is jumping on the decisions of others that puts him in the lime light. suspect this is smoke and mirrors deferring away from the big spend and increase of rates. Lets fix this and other things around the town that need fixing before building the water front and putting Dunedin further into debit. Put it this way Cull is prepared to put Dunedin in to years of debit get his glory of a knight hood and walk away most likely to pop away to a retirement nest egg some place in Central Otago.
The DCC are damned if they do, damned if they don't.
I personally think they made the right decision.
Agree the DCC made the right decision, but in my view Cull doesn't need to jump on the back of this because he is never the first to front up on other things.
You are reading way too much into it. He's not jumping on the back of anything, he's part of the decision-making process, as are all other councilors when it comes to important issues.
He is often the first to front on issues, it comes with the job. As mayor, he is the spokesperson for the Council.
Whether you like him or not as a politician, or as a person (and you seem to have a beef with him) I don't think I've seen him shirk away from the tough calls when they need to be made, even when it's made him unpopular.
I guess you can't please veryone.
You would be correct, I don't think much of him because when he was re running for Mayor, I was new to the town, he was constantly putting out flyers on his now gone FB page of what he was about and what wonderful things he could do for the city, I took it upon myself to turn his 'what he could do flyers' in to questions on the topics and he could not even be bothered to answer the majority of the questions he fobbed them off and those he did comment on were not worth the bother. To this day he has kept up his hard to find for answers when he needs to be accountable ( power pole, Stolen cars, Drains, flooding, but any glory lime light settings (pictures with tourists, ) he is there in a flash.
It's good to know you are another from 'away', not of the OB Network.
The personal is political, but 'being personal', not so much.