“Maybe stop calling them "anchor projects" if they haven't been built after
five years, and have obstructed Christchurch recovery more than helped.”
~ Francis McRae
The reality of government’s’ top-down numb fumbling in Christchurch has been measured in a Treasury Report that concludes the Key Government’s Central City Recovery Plan for the city “hangs in the balance” and the governments so-called “anchor projects” that were supposed to, ahem, anchor the whole frickin’ mess are, and I quote, “unachievable.”
Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee has dismissed the report as “utter tripe.” He doesn’t bother to show any working.
He says the findings show the "arrogant bureaucratic attitude" the Wellington-based department has towards Christchurch.
Which is ironic, not to say imbecilic, because the government’s entire plan for the city since Day One of the first earthquake has been arrogant, bureaucratic and dictatorial. The army out on on the streets stopping people entering their own buildings. Government agencies refusing to let land-owners make plans for their own land and buildings. Several layers of government planners—in total defiance of all commercial reality--telling everyone how, when and where things will happen, doing all but prohibit things happening in any other way, and seeking to shut down anyone attempting (and succeeding) doing things in a way or in a place that hasn’t been previously approved by the planners.
An earthquake is one disaster. It’s a major. But the government and bureaucratic disaster of top-down dictatorial ‘planning’ since has been worse all round. (Just compare how two almost identical cities fared under similar circumstances: ‘The Triumph of Ethics over Practicality: A Tale of Two Cities.’)
The balance in which the plan should be weighed is one in which land-owners, investors and entrepreneurs should have been free to make their own evaluations and back them—which could (and should) have happened from Day Two. Weigh that ‘plan’ first, And then maybe we should get on and deal with the hangings.
UPDATE: Hugh Pavletich comments:
The much touted ‘100-day’ blueprint is now only useful as bog paper. The sooner it is guillotined into strips and deposited in National cabinet minister's loos the better -- so they can feel just a trifle of the pain felt by many in Chch still battling with Southern No-Response, EQC, and daily interactions of CCDU and the soon to be forgotten CERA…
The Blueprint lunacy was simply an extension of the paintbrush planning fantasies of the local CCC bureaucrats …
3 comments:
Yes, I will be surprised if we see the Convention Centre before I start climbing trees again. And so too the Sports stadium and the Town Hall. One of the things I found is that people in Christchurch became emotionally detached from the City Centre. We just don't go there any more unless you twist our hands behind the back. Now we drive our collapsing suspensions down to the Suburban Malls and stare hopelessly at all the Asian girls buying dresses, and shoes. I wonder if Antony G. has dreams that he went to Bangkok and stayed there. I do. We have Hugh Pavletich to stand up for us, when I am King he will have even more work than ever. But we are lost in memories of the library, our cafes, and the movie theatres. God in heaven some of us have even forgiven Gary Moore. You see we are in a lost City . It was good to read about Joplin, Missouri though. .
I think Christchurch may come to be grateful the wheels have fallen off these wish list projects. The debt will be bad enough without them. It seems Christchurch has evolved and patterns have changed - as you would expect, and the central planners having a tanty won't change that.
I know that lots of commercial insurance money left the area with insurers and clients doing cash deals to resolve the claims. Both parties cut their losses and both were happy to move on.
3:16
3:16
Ronald Reagan said," gov't was the problem not the solution". The Christchurch rebuild seems to prove that he was right .
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