Chch Central City Rebuild

[Brent George]

A call for action as 20% of central Christchurch sites remain undeveloped:-
Stuff - The Press: 10-Dec-2020

Central Christchurch landowners are being told to build on their bare land or sell to someone who will.

Almost 20 per cent of central city land, in more than 450 sites, is vacant and much of it is hindering regeneration, a staff report to the city council said on Wednesday.  Councillors approved a plan to encourage owners to either develop their land or ensure it was being used positively in the meantime.  Among suggested fixes in the vacant sites programme is changing the rates policy “to disincentivise holding vacant land”.

- although the proliferation of central city apartments that have been constructed are struggling to sell....
- and other than the big corporates who like to be in the central city, many of the small-to-medium businesses who shifted out into the periphery or to the suburbs immediately post-earthquake are quite liking those locations and have no desire to return to the CBD...
- and what in the heck will Wilson's Carparks do without the empty lots to use to fleece people wanting to park? 

[Brent George]

Christchurch rebuild 'a disappointment' and 'lost opportunity'
Stuff - The Press: 20-March-2023

The Christchurch rebuild is a disappointment that missed an opportunity to be radical, says a Kiwi architecture professor.

Derek Kawiti, professor of architecture at Victoria University Wellington, visited Christchurch while he was making a series for Māori TV about a new wave of modern Māori-driven and designed architecture across Aotearoa.

The series, called The Drawing Board, includes an episode looking at the Christchurch rebuild, which will air on Māori TV on March 27.

Kawiti said many of the new buildings in Christchurch lacked character.

I recall another round of reports of 'concerns' with the rebuild plan when Minister Brownlee put a halt to the Council facilitated industry driven public consultation call for ideas and plans.  Industry (architects; landscape designers; planners; developers; (surveyors?) etc) had come up with some bold ideas to create a sustainable; green; energy efficient; people centric; technology lead rebuild that would really put the city (and NZ) on the map in terms of what and how to rebuild after a natural disaster.  But Gerry and his guv-mint - in their 'wisdom' - binned those ideas and implemented a new blueprint.  So instead we got what we now have - a newer stock of buildings that are generally the same as any average city in a layout that is only slightly different than a grid pattern.

Maybe "radical" and "Christchurch" is an oxymoron...