Friday 22 February 2013

The Rebuild(TM): Tell us your story [updated]

DSC_0061

It’s now exactly two years since the big earthquake that tore Christchurch apart, two-and-a-half years since the first large shake, and despite lots of talk about The RebuildTM, there’s been precious little rebuilding and lots and lots of hindrances and prohibitions on any building at all.

Perhaps because all the talk has been about The Rebuild—a phrase revealing the top-down thinking of central planners, who move with glacial pace their wonders to under-achieve--rather than about rebuilding—a word describing a process in which people just get on with it.

Which is why when I hear the grey ones talking ad nauseum about The Rebuild I want to scream.

So on this inauspicious anniversary, when we commemorate how government both central and local has managed to do to the city what the earthquake couldn’t quite manage, rather than me saying again what I’ve said umpteen times before about The Nonbuild (see below), why not take this chance, Cantabrian readers, to tell us what’s been happening to you.

Tell us your story.

JUST SOME OF THE STILL-RELEVANT POST-EARTHQUAKE COMMENTARY
THAT’S APPEARED HERE AT NOT PC:

UPDATE: I can’t resist fisking John Key’s media release to mark the second anniversary (Key’s coments are in italics):

Rebuilding Christchurch is one of the four priorities my Government has for this term in office…
…and it looks like a disaster. Still, with two of the other three “priorities” (stronger economy and responsible finances) looking worse by the month, and the fourth (asset sales) all blown out of the water, at least they’re all of a piece.  And at least he said “rebuilding.”

The destruction in greater Christchurch means we're facing unprecedented circumstances, but each time I visit the city I am staggered by the progress that has been made.
Progress? What progress?  Let’s see what he can spin to find something to boast about….

The land zoning process is pretty much complete.…
My god, is this really achievement number one?!   The planners, who have been active (for two frickin years!) drawing lines on paper prohibiting folk doing what they wish with their own property, are almost finished! Two years of folk knowing not what they might or might not be allowed to do!!  But cheer up, this process is now “pretty much complete.”

…and by the end of the year more than 50,000 house repairs are expected to be completed under the EQC managed repair programme. 
I really don’t think “managed” is the word to use for anything related to EQC. And this 50,000 figure is not “progress that has been made.”  It’s progress promised “by the end of the year,” promised with a smile and wave, with no care and every little responsibility because a meagre 13,000 houses is all that the “the EQC managed repair programme” has actually managed to repair in two fricken years! Not exactly progress. And not much to boast about.

The CBD red zone is decreasing and we expect the cordon to be gone by the middle of the year. 
Translation: The cordon around the city for the last two years keeping land and business owners from their property in the CBD might be taken down in a few months. It might. But only if, by then, we’ve turned the entire CBD into a carpark, with or without the permission of property owners.

Economic activity is improving, with latest figures showing 7.5 per cent growth in the region year on year, and
over 16,000 more people were employed in Christchurch last year.
”Last year”: i.e., a year in which economic activity was only just beginning to recover from being blasted to hell and back.   And while 16,000 more is better than 16,000 fewer, overall employment levels are still well below pre-earthquake employment levels.

In other words, don’t believe a frickin’ thing these bastards say.

2 comments:

Fentex said...

It’s now exactly two years since the big earthquake that tore Christchurch apart, two-and-a-half years since the first large shake, and despite lots of talk about The RebuildTM, there’s been precious little rebuilding and lots and lots of hindrances and prohibitions on any building at all.

As a Christchurch resident I am happy to state that there has been a considerable amount of building going on and statements that nothing is being built are untrue.

Individuals unhappy with their circumstance and any number of other complaints about government policies and actions may be valid, but a blanket statement that little is being built is false.

Having said that I will add to complaints that the idea of banning buildings over four stories is irrational and childish pandering to superstitious fear and a shrinking from the well proven efficacy of good engineering.

Anonymous said...

I act for two building companies, a gib-stopper and a plumber in CHCH and given their reports and increased staff needs, any suggested sluggishness in the re-build is open to ridicule. The city and surrounds is abuzz with re-building.

Chris R.