Draft city plan finally revealed
Aug. 11th, 2011 10:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rumpelsnorcackThe draft of the plan for the central city has been revealed today. Despite the efforts of many people to find things to dislike in it, it's actually pretty good. So long as funding is available for what they want to do it looks achievable AND it gets in almost everything that everyone wanted at the workshop I went to. It's not either too over the top and lost in a dream land but neither is it settling for just what we always had. The top ten projects (I guess in terms of size) are (as quoted from the Press article):
1. Avon River: the banks will be widened to create a riverfront park with boardwalks and pedestrian and cycle friendly areas (they plan to extend this right through the wrecked red zone in the east and down to the sea)
2. Compact CBD: shops and offices will be encourage to be in a smaller, concentrated area bounded by Lichfield, Manchester and Kilmore streets and the Avon River
3. Light rail: to link the central city and key attractions with the university, Lyttelton, Rolleston and Rangiora ( the plan also mentions Northlands and New Brighton, though the article doesn't here)
4. Metro sports hub: an aquatic centre, indoor stadium, health and fitness centre, and elite performance and training facilities (*grumps* they specifically mentioned using the insurance from QEII to build this, which makes me all kinds of sad - we still need facilities out east)
5. Christchurch Hospital: establish a health precinct with a redeveloped hospital to attract a range of health and medical businesses and research and training institutes
6. Cathedral Square: create a greener civic and cultural hub for people to visit, picnic, or simply linger (what the cathedral will look like is up to the Anglican church and so that has no part of the plan here)
7. Central Library: a new central library to be built
8. Transport choice: making the city easier to get to and about by making it safer and more pleasant to walk, cycle, use public transport, or drive and park (so many interesting things here - particularly making the inner core of the city a slow zone where cars can't go faster than 30k. They have this in Blenheim and it's a really pleasant place to walk around so I see this as being quite a good idea. They will also remove the one way system and return those streets to two way to lessen the impact of cars speeding through the city)
9. Convention Centre: a new world-class centre (the old one has just been condemned to demolition so we need a new one)
10. Neighbourhood Parks: a network of parks and gardens spread throughout the central city.
The mayor took almost 2 hours to explain the whole thing so it's impossible to boil it down, but a few other highlights are - they will build an earthquake museum and research centre thing (code named the 'EPI-centre' which made me roll my eyes a little but I won't hold that against it). They want to restrict the heights of buildings in certain parts of the city - the cathedral can be its current height, the next row out can go only 29-ish metres here (roughly 7 stories), the next row out 5 stories and so on outwards to make a more cohesive looking city. Anything that remains standing that is higher than that can stay but they don't want new buildings to go higher than the maximum height for their zone. I'm a little disappointed because I like tall buildings but I know that the mood of the city is for low rise and so it doesn't surprise me. There are a lot of ideas for incentives etc to get people to live in the central city, the most interesting is that they are petitioning central government to be allowed to 'unzone' the city, that is that if you live within the 4 Avenues you'd be allowed to send your kids to any school in the city regardless of what the actual zone around the school was. That's fraught with all sorts of issues, but if that was the case I'd almost be tempted to move in there myself.
There's far too much to remember right now but the mood out there today is so upbeat and chirpy that it's been great. There are a few naysayers both on the news sites and on twitter, but the overall mood is amazingly happy. It's been a long time since the people seemed so very uplifted and overwhelmingly positive about the city and its future. The plan is now up for public consultation and the final result is due at the end of the year. Whatever happens from here this is a good thing - one step forward towards a new future. I particularly like the idea of the wide area around the river. There are parts of the river where it's already allowed to breathe like this and I've always loved those bits. It would be great to see that part of the plan, at least, come to fruition.
Anyway, in other news the forecast snow is becoming more and more likely, with the met service definitively having snow on the radar for Sunday and Monday. The kids are ecstatic at the idea so I guess that's a good thing. Here's hoping that if it comes it's neither too disruptive nor long lasting. I guess all we can do is keep watching the forecast and wait and see what turns up.
In other positive quaky things the kids have started on the Journey of Hope which has been adapted from the programme created for New Orleans to suit the needs of our situation. Seth's course has started but the younger ones have been put off til the end of the month because they had to split the group. Seth thinks it's great and already wants to sign up again if they run it in the future. What I find really fascinating is that of the 8 kids in his wee group, 5 of them are from our little home school. It's a course that you had to specifically go and enrol the kids for and I guess it's the type of parents who were proactive about getting a school going that were most likely to be proactive about doing something like this. I hope they do keep running it and that more kids get to be involved. With a maximum of 10 kids per group it's a very small proportion of the kids at the school and quite probably hasn't targeted those who are suffering the most.
Anyway, that's us. It's been a really good day - uplifted, positive and hopeful. It's nice to see a good side to all the stuff we've been going through for once. Now it's time to see that imagined future start to take shape :D
1. Avon River: the banks will be widened to create a riverfront park with boardwalks and pedestrian and cycle friendly areas (they plan to extend this right through the wrecked red zone in the east and down to the sea)
2. Compact CBD: shops and offices will be encourage to be in a smaller, concentrated area bounded by Lichfield, Manchester and Kilmore streets and the Avon River
3. Light rail: to link the central city and key attractions with the university, Lyttelton, Rolleston and Rangiora ( the plan also mentions Northlands and New Brighton, though the article doesn't here)
4. Metro sports hub: an aquatic centre, indoor stadium, health and fitness centre, and elite performance and training facilities (*grumps* they specifically mentioned using the insurance from QEII to build this, which makes me all kinds of sad - we still need facilities out east)
5. Christchurch Hospital: establish a health precinct with a redeveloped hospital to attract a range of health and medical businesses and research and training institutes
6. Cathedral Square: create a greener civic and cultural hub for people to visit, picnic, or simply linger (what the cathedral will look like is up to the Anglican church and so that has no part of the plan here)
7. Central Library: a new central library to be built
8. Transport choice: making the city easier to get to and about by making it safer and more pleasant to walk, cycle, use public transport, or drive and park (so many interesting things here - particularly making the inner core of the city a slow zone where cars can't go faster than 30k. They have this in Blenheim and it's a really pleasant place to walk around so I see this as being quite a good idea. They will also remove the one way system and return those streets to two way to lessen the impact of cars speeding through the city)
9. Convention Centre: a new world-class centre (the old one has just been condemned to demolition so we need a new one)
10. Neighbourhood Parks: a network of parks and gardens spread throughout the central city.
The mayor took almost 2 hours to explain the whole thing so it's impossible to boil it down, but a few other highlights are - they will build an earthquake museum and research centre thing (code named the 'EPI-centre' which made me roll my eyes a little but I won't hold that against it). They want to restrict the heights of buildings in certain parts of the city - the cathedral can be its current height, the next row out can go only 29-ish metres here (roughly 7 stories), the next row out 5 stories and so on outwards to make a more cohesive looking city. Anything that remains standing that is higher than that can stay but they don't want new buildings to go higher than the maximum height for their zone. I'm a little disappointed because I like tall buildings but I know that the mood of the city is for low rise and so it doesn't surprise me. There are a lot of ideas for incentives etc to get people to live in the central city, the most interesting is that they are petitioning central government to be allowed to 'unzone' the city, that is that if you live within the 4 Avenues you'd be allowed to send your kids to any school in the city regardless of what the actual zone around the school was. That's fraught with all sorts of issues, but if that was the case I'd almost be tempted to move in there myself.
There's far too much to remember right now but the mood out there today is so upbeat and chirpy that it's been great. There are a few naysayers both on the news sites and on twitter, but the overall mood is amazingly happy. It's been a long time since the people seemed so very uplifted and overwhelmingly positive about the city and its future. The plan is now up for public consultation and the final result is due at the end of the year. Whatever happens from here this is a good thing - one step forward towards a new future. I particularly like the idea of the wide area around the river. There are parts of the river where it's already allowed to breathe like this and I've always loved those bits. It would be great to see that part of the plan, at least, come to fruition.
Anyway, in other news the forecast snow is becoming more and more likely, with the met service definitively having snow on the radar for Sunday and Monday. The kids are ecstatic at the idea so I guess that's a good thing. Here's hoping that if it comes it's neither too disruptive nor long lasting. I guess all we can do is keep watching the forecast and wait and see what turns up.
In other positive quaky things the kids have started on the Journey of Hope which has been adapted from the programme created for New Orleans to suit the needs of our situation. Seth's course has started but the younger ones have been put off til the end of the month because they had to split the group. Seth thinks it's great and already wants to sign up again if they run it in the future. What I find really fascinating is that of the 8 kids in his wee group, 5 of them are from our little home school. It's a course that you had to specifically go and enrol the kids for and I guess it's the type of parents who were proactive about getting a school going that were most likely to be proactive about doing something like this. I hope they do keep running it and that more kids get to be involved. With a maximum of 10 kids per group it's a very small proportion of the kids at the school and quite probably hasn't targeted those who are suffering the most.
Anyway, that's us. It's been a really good day - uplifted, positive and hopeful. It's nice to see a good side to all the stuff we've been going through for once. Now it's time to see that imagined future start to take shape :D
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-14 10:06 pm (UTC)Total lol at this:
Despite the efforts of many people to find things to dislike in it, it's actually pretty good.
How's the snow going? I hope it is not too severe and people are staying safe and warm and that your kids are having a good time!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-15 05:32 am (UTC)There are two major points of contention - the light rail and the building heights. The light rail because it has always been the Mayor's pet project and he seems to be taking the opportunity to push it (saying that people overwhelmingly wanted it is a bit disingenuous when it was one of the very specific things we HAD to address at the workshops) and people are worried about the costs and whether it's a big enough city to be able to deal with it. The heights because developers and building owners in the CBD are worried about future profits and in some cases about insurance payout issues - if they have to rebuild to the same specs as before and they can't do so because of new regulations then they have an issue. So there are problems but those should get ironed out in the consultation process.
How's the snow going? I hope it is not too severe and people are staying safe and warm and that your kids are having a good time!
Well. There's a post coming on it, but it's at least as bad as last time and is expected to keep going. The snow itself is different - more powdery and less solid so it's been harder to walk in and has turned to slush really fast - which is going to create issues tomorrow when we a) freeze overnight (it's currently .5 C over freezing) and b) when the next lot of snow hits overnight. However, yes the kids are having a blast so that's one good thing at least :D
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-11 05:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-11 07:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-11 07:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-12 12:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-12 11:29 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2012-07-09 04:59 am (UTC)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6M_6qOz-yw