by Russel Norman
Re-opening the Christchurch office last night was an opportunity to talk to locals about what’s ahead. Obviously we need to work on the immediate issues of safety and welfare, but we also need to think ahead at the same time.
Some of the issues raised were:
- Making sure that the community of Christchurch and Canterbury have a strong voice in any rebuilding plans. Yes consents will need to be sped up but people need to be given a say in any of the plans.
- Protecting as many remaining heritage buildings as possible to protect Chc identity.
- Ensuring that new buildings aren’t just poor quality tilt slabs.
- Looking at those suburbs that did particularly badly in the quake and assessing whether we should rebuild in those areas.
- Ensuring that whereever possible rebuilding meets high green building standards – warmth, light, insulation etc.
No doubt there will be more over the next weeks and months. I raised some of the issues in Question Time today. Key said that the rebuilding process would be led from Christchurch and that heritage and quality were important. He didn’t give any details on the powers of the proposed central govt earthquake Commissioner to work with Canterbury.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Russel Norman on Wed, September 8th, 2010
Tags: Canterbury earthquake, Russel Norman
More posts by Russel Norman | more about Russel Norman
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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Are they … in the counting house, counting all their money?
In the parlour, eating bread and honey?
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Sir Miles Warren was just saying that “you drive in from the airport and you don’t see a single house damaged: they are all on good shingle”. So who o.k’ed building on swamp? It seems though that with earthworks you can mitigate liquification as at Pegasus where lakes are excavated so that shaking spreads the earth sideways (not sure of the details). Lets face it though growth has always been “good” and NZ needs more people and not being seen as racist has been the top priority. It’s a shame there isn’t a machine that can detect the values of migrants.
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toad and robert – why don’t you use the terrible disaster in Canterbury to try to score cheap political points?
– oh you are already.
Nice
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Just because there has been an earthquake, it doesn’t mean that accountability should be thrown out the door – indeed, there should be more accountability.
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And your evidence that they are not doing there job is….?
Because you haven’t seen them on tv?
And your evidence that accountability has been “thrown out the door” is…..?
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The cancellation of ‘meet the candidates’ meetings when there are areas that are clearly safer than others and to where they could be moved is a disappointment in these challenging times. Commentators on air earlier this week were even saying the Christchurch elections were over. (God voted Bob, by all accounts). That is very unfair on the identified (polled) near two thirds who hadnt made up their mind. Perhaps when the centre city reopens a ‘soap box in the city’ might be entirely appropriate.
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Cheap? Cheap!
Oh! I get it photonz1!
You were alluding to another nursery rhyme – four and twenty blackbirds etc.
That’s cheep!
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robert – grow up.
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Standout was how we should have been doing more research before… before the commercial imperative (and I take it as also meaning growth for the sake of growth(the anthropo version) took over..
Which appears summary judgement by these two experts. And which I for one am willing to adhere to since much else of what they said objectively, rather then admitted to subjectively, looked decidedly common sense. Yet, sadly, post a most damaging event. And failure. To foresee. And fore-do!
Yep, those brick facades could have been ‘tied’ to backing structures.. those foundations could have been sub-piled..
So.. my ask here and now is for the big, broad and scientifically-based build-out. Nay, no point in rebuild if fifty years hence or sooner, the whole place is unlivable. For its human population.
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Little boy Blue, come blow your horn…
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robert – it is your attitude that is infantile.
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If I had been trying to make cheap political points I would have commented adversely on John Key’s relief package for small businesses that cannot pay their staff. I didn’t. While I could question its adequacy, I consider Key’s public response to this natural disaster has overall been very good. So has Bob Parker’s. And neither of them are politicians I normally hold in high regard.
Part of the responsibility of central and local government in situations like this is to front up publicly and keep people informed about what they are doing in response to it. While the ECan staff have been doing a good job with the earthquake update page on ECan’s website, I would have expected the ECan Commissioners to be publicly fronting the Regional Council’s response in the MSM. But not a squeak from them.
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toad – oh – so because you’ve seen the mayor being the spokesperson for civil defence, and haven’t seen them on tv, that’s why you think they are in your works “junta” – i.e. meaning holding their position because only because of their military might.
And that’s not using the disaster to score cheap political points.
Yeah right.
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photonz1 – Parker’s role as Mayor extends only to Christchurch City, not to the entire Canterbury region, much of which is affected, in case you missed that point.
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Why..? These are the very buildings that put so many extra people’s lives in danger…
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toad – duh. Why don’t you state the obvious.
Have you had a go at the mayors of Selwyn or Waimak, or the those in charge of education, roads, power, telecoms etc, because most of the info is coming from the central point of Civil Defence HQ, often though Bob Parker?
No – you haven’t.
It’s obvious you are just bickering using the earthquake to try to score political points.
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@photonz1 3:36 PM
Pot, kettle!
I commend Key and Parker for their respective public responses. I condemn the ECan Commissioners for their failure to publicly front. Simple, really, isn’t it? If ECan still had elected Councilors and an elected Chair (be it ex-Labour MP Sir Kerry Burke or ex-National MP Alec Neill who replaced Sir Kerry as ECan Chair) I’m sure there would have been some leadership from ECan in this crisis.
But it doesn’t, and there isn’t.
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Because they remind people of why they want to stay in Christchurch, rather than fleeing.
Yes, they also need to be reconstructed in ways that make them safe. It’s an investment in enabling people to stay there, and this is the opportunity to make the investment.
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I would probably suggest that a lot of those buildings are going to be beyond repair. I don’t want to sound nasty here, but I suspect that there are a lot of happy landowners right now because Mother Nature has just gotten rid of the historic buildings that prevented them from constructing taller (and thus more valuable) buildings on those sites.
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toad –
500 commercial buildings will be demolished.
Hundreds, if not thousands, will lose jobs.
100,000 houses are damaged.
Whole streets will be demolished.
Traumatised families are leaving Christchurch.
The repair bill is estimated at $4 BILLION
And your prime concern about the earthquake?
That you haven’t seen Ecan on TV.
Yeah right.
You’re transparent as glass.
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TOAD IS ABSOLUTELY 100% RIGHT!!! The area of responsibility for E-CAN is the foreshore and waterways of canterbury, we don’t have a quarrel with the staff of e-can who we know are knuckling under in times of stress.
But what of the commissioners? Not a squeek. I have not heard a squeek from our mayor Kelvin Coe yet either, he may be active but being at the helm of local government demands that the public be constantly informed and more importantly in a disaster, be re-assured.
Key and Bob Parker have done that.
It is very sad to see the old classical buildings fall apart I was listening to sir Miles Warren & Mahoney today and they identified the problem is not knowing enough about the soils and structure of the property.
They pointed out that it has been known for over a century that dwellings built on swampy, boggy or sandy soil will fare badly in earthquakes.
People ignored the advice thinking that the big earthquake would not come in their lifetime, or it will hit Wellington instead!!!
I never expected a big quack in Christchurch.
I would like to see some of our old gems restored to their former glory like the Repratory Theatre etc.
The west side of the city suffered very little damage whereas the sandy areas of the north and east suffered the most through liquification.
It would be common sense to re-build the city further inland.
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“Whole streets will be demolished.”
Name two please. I am only aware of one.
“100,000 houses are damaged.”
But isn’t it only hundreds of houses that are not currently fit to live in, although a number are yet to be assessed?
Trevor.
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As the rebuilding progresses over the next few months the Greens should be there to promote rebuilding or retrofitting quake damaged homes with rainwater collection systems, grey water tanks, solar heating and even composting toilets. All good stuff even on a good day, but able to make householders far more resilient in the event of a disaster.
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Trevor questions whether 100,000 houses are damaged.
Try listening to the radio
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/canterbury-earthquake/56184/estimated-100,000-houses-damaged-carter
Or reading the paper
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/christchurch-earthquake/news/article.cfm?c_id=1502981&objectid=10671828
Or watching the tv
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/city-back-normal-demolitions-continue-3763270
Trevor asks the names of two streets to be demolished.
Seabreeze Close, Bexley.
http://emigratetonewzealand.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/looters-and-bulldozers-on-the-streets-of-christchurch/
Phil Goff reports
“A whole street of houses had slipped off their foundations and sunk into the ground—some had sunk in as much as a metre” at The Pines.
“In some cases whole streets have been condemned”
In Kaiapoi alone (one small town outside of Chirstchurch with a total of 1800 houses )there’s currently 400 houses unsafe to live in – that’s nearly a quarter of all homes in Kaiapoi.
What’s your point?
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Although Bob is doing a job that would make Giuliani proud, and Key is being uber statemen-like, just becuase other officials are not on the telly every five minutes, don’t assume they are doing nothing.
ECan’s website is linked to from the right places, and has been regularly updated.
I live in the Waimakariri district, and the night before last found myself at about 6:30pm for nearly an hour in the car park behind the Waimak Council buildings in Rangi, parked closes to the High Street, a point that gives a view through the staff door into the Council building.
There is no lack of action taking place there. I have (through a shared common interest) a couple of friends who are Council employees, one a librarian, one a policy manager, and both were to be seen still there up to things outside their sphere of expertise. A councillor for whom I normally have no time (again, through non-political interaction) was also there in a crisis management role.
I think the Waimak council are doing just fine, as these things go, even though you haven’t seen them on the telly. They are managing the trashment of kaiapoi. They are just getting on with it.
I suspect exactly the same is true of ECan.
I don’t need people to “front” – I need them to get on with fixing things. The media’s needs and the people of Canterbury’s needs are two very different things. It’ll all be acedemic soon anyway; the media are now getting bored with the ‘quake, and soon they’ll be gone, leaving us Cantabrians with the mess.
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A disaster of this scale is not an opportunity to have every enthusiast enforcing their fads on people whose prime need is to have shelter and comfort and stability.
Huge areas of New Orleans sat in ruins for years while planners tried to develop new neighbourhood plans.
The residents simply fled to Houston as refugees.
If I am planning to rebuild my house the last thing I need is for my neighbours all chipping in telling me what to do, or cannot do.
On the other hand there is a need to learn what we can and respond as quickly as we can.
I suspect many people will decide that bricks are not as “solid” as they have been led to believe – lots of bricks for brick paving though, which is a benefit.
A lesson we should have learned is that preserving heritage buildings comes at a risk and a price.
The present approach of expecting the private land owner to pay all the costs means that people fight the necessary costs of strengthening.A more sensible policy would have seen those buildings properly strengthened.
My report on managing heritage attempted to address this. Read it here:
http://rmastudies.org.nz/documents/cultheris.pdf
The Green Party should surely support these recommendations:
14.9 Heritage New Zealand, a policy unit reporting to a new Minister of Natural and
Cultural Heritage, should be established to develop cultural heritage policy for New
Zealand. Heritage New Zealand will administer the Heritage at Risk fund, which would
come out of the present DoC budget.
14.10 All heritage projects and applications to the Heritage at Risk fund must be
initiated locally, and with the consent of the owner, unless purchase with total
compensation is the only alternative.
14.11 Competitive bidding for Heritage at Risk funding will encourage innovative
funding and incentive packages within the public, private and social sectors.
14.12 Maori should be fully and fairly involved, on equal footing with all groups, in the
development of heritage policy, the promotion of projects, and applications for funds.
14.14 All heritage policies should be aimed at making a heritage listing an asset rather
than a liability.
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photonz1 – my point is that some of the media reporting is making this disaster sound even worse than it actually is. And I did not dispute that 100,000 homes may be damaged, although that is only an estimate. However most of the damage is relatively mild, with fallen chimneys being a common problem among those with significant damage. Christchurch has about 160,000 homes and most residents are still living in those homes. There are only a few hundred people (out of > 400,000) in welfare centres.
A few streets or cul de sacs built on soft ground have been hard hit and most of the houses may be unrepairable but they are the exceptions. To say “Whole streets will be demolished” is misleading or worse.
Trevor.
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Trevor says “Whole streets will be demolished” is misleading or worse.”
Is it? – then why did you say
“A few streets or cul de sacs built on soft ground have been hard hit and most of the houses may be unrepairable but they are the exceptions.”
You just contradicted yourself.
The point I was making was toad was transparently using the disaster to score cheap points against Ecan because he didn’t see them on tv.
Are Ecan responsible for -
- roading? – no
- housing? = no
- businesses? – no
- power supply? – no
- water supply? – no
- telephones? no
- cell phone communications? – no
- sewers? – no
- health? – no
- accident and emergncy? – no
- rabbits and other pests – YES
- air quality – YES
- water quality in the rivers – YES
So why does toad expect them to take a leadership role when there are a dozen other agencies and councils ahead of Ecan who ARE responsible for infrastructure damage.
It is transparently obvious that toads reasons for the attack on Ecan are false and have nothing to do with the Christchurch disaster.
Which proves my very first point – it’s obvious that toad is using the disaster to score cheap political points.
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photonz1 – no contradiction at all. There is a big difference between “most” and “all” – the latter implied by “whole”. There is also a big difference between “may” and “will”. The use of the word “street” suggests a longer road and therefore more affected properties than “cul de sac” or “Close” or “Lane”. There is also a significant difference between the number of streets suggested by “Whole streets” and “A few streets”, as the former implies at least two but without any further qualifications, the reader is lead to believe that a much higher number of streets may be affected.
While a large part of Christchurch may be affected to some extent, for many people, life has pretty much returned to normal except for some interrupted sleep and more stress than usual, although the schools and university are due to reopen soon.
Trevor.
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Trevor – whatever – I’m not going to argue the difference between “close” and “lane” and “cul de sac” and “street” and “whole” and “few” and “most” with you – that would be anal.
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