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How should an earthquake damaged building be tagged? Especially one that is due to be deconstructed and demolished.

Several buildings in Wellington, New Zealand, suffered structural damage after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake. Three of the buildings are slated for emergency demolition, with streets cordoned off and surrounding buildings evacuated until this happens. The only indication that some of these buildings are damaged is a sign/placard on the front door.

I have tried tagging one, at 61 Molesworth Street, but cannot find any suitable tags to indicate the building is still standing but will be demolished in the next few days.

The big deconstruction machine looks ready to pull the building apart in the next few days. I have tagged "land_use" = "construction" but not used the demolished tag because (most of) the building is still standing today.

How should I tag the building now that demolition is beginning?

What about showing the cordons and closed roads? Should the temporary closures be shown? They are likely to be in place for a couple of weeks.

asked 26 Nov '16, 23:09

Huttite's gravatar image

Huttite
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Hi Huttite, my First suggestion would be to tag it using these pages, https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:landuse%3Dconstruction since thats the only way OSM has tags for building or construction sites. There is no deconstruction tag. But these Lines would do better, https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Damaged_buildings_crisis_mapping if you substitute typhoon by earthquake, its like following the Wiki guide lines.

permanent link

answered 27 Nov '16, 23:39

Hendrikklaas's gravatar image

Hendrikklaas
9.3k207238387
accept rate: 5%

I can agree that demolition of a building by deconstruction is a form of construction, despite this being an oxymoronic concept. Hence my tagging. I also think that the crisis mapping tags have value, not only for earthquakes and typhoons but also for other man-made and natural disasters such as wars, terrorism, fires, industrial accidents, and damaging weather events such as storms, floods, landslides and earth movements.

(01 Jan '17, 01:25) Huttite

Have a look at the lifecycle prefixes, https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Lifecycle_prefix

Relevant keys in my eyes for the earthquake situation would be disused (just temporarily evacuated, but likely to be repaired at some point), abandoned (heave repairs necessary, unclear if and when that will happen), demolished (when it actually gets torn down) and construction (when actual reconstruction takes place).

For temporary road closures check out this proposal: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features/temporary_(conditional)#Examples

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answered 28 Nov '16, 08:44

jot's gravatar image

jot
511710
accept rate: 9%

Before I posed the question I had already looked at the above keys. To me, none of them really seemed relevant. Unlike most buildings, these buildings had been evacuated because the buildings had been structurally damaged and posed a threat to life.

While the proposed temporary tags do not quite answer the question of an indefinite, but not permanent road closure, it does indicate that permanent tags should not be changed unless the closure is likely to be longer than 12 months. However this is a proposal that is not yet approved.

(01 Jan '17, 01:16) Huttite
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question asked: 26 Nov '16, 23:09

question was seen: 2,170 times

last updated: 01 Jan '17, 01:25

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum