A Dunedin City Council undertaking in 2007 to complete an office-based screening of the city's building stock to discover which were deemed safe in an earthquake has not been done yet.
It emerged yesterday city residents may have to wait more than two years to learn which of the city's buildings are safe, and which are earthquake-prone.
The city council intends to compile that information as part of a review of its earthquake-prone buildings policy.
The issue of which buildings in New Zealand cities are earthquake-prone has provoked debate in other cities, with the Wellington City Council reported to have released a list of more than 800, but Auckland not releasing its earthquake-prone building register.
In Dunedin, the dangerous, insanitary and earthquake-prone buildings policy is under review.
The current policy, released in 2007, noted there were buildings that were not earthquake-prone, and "the Dunedin City Council will undertake, at no cost to the building owner, an initial desktop screening of Dunedin's building stock to identify those buildings not earthquake prone".
After that, building owners not eliminated were to have done an assessment, though there were varying time periods in which that had to be done.
But city environment general manager Tony Avery said yesterday a list of Dunedin buildings that were not earthquake-prone had not been put together.
There had been "initial work only" done since the policy was brought in.
"I don't think we've spent lots of time identifying those buildings."
Mr Avery said the policy was obviously written before the recent Christchurch earthquake, which had "focused everyone's mind" on the issue.
It was up to city councillors whether they wanted to tighten up the policy. Work to update the policy began last year.
A November 2010 report to the council's planning and environment committee included a time line with the final policy to be in place by November next year.
Heritage policy planner Glen Hazelton said information would be gathered on the city's buildings if the policy was approved by the council.
If the council could not confirm buildings were not earthquake-prone, letters would be sent to owners asking for an engineering report.
After that, owners would have two years to provide an initial assessment.