2-5-10
The Canterbury Business Leaders' Group has been advertising heavily in the newspaper about the need for 'goals' and 'milestones' to work towards and have invited people to add their '2-5-10' milestones for the future of the city. While I don't want to join in their futile-looking website collection of what-we-want-for-our-city it did get me thinking about what I want to see in the next few years. This is what I have come to:
2 years -- by which they mean 2013 which I find fascinating - as if they forget that the city has been on its knees for longer than that and we are, in fact, 3 months out from the real '2 years' but whatever; I'll go with 2013. 1) I would like to see all claims on housing if not settled then at least underway with some certainty for people as to when they might be fixed or rebuilt. So I guess I'm saying I'd like to see better communications from insurers, EQC, CERA etc and more understanding that people need to have some control over what happens in their lives. 2) I would like to see a lot of temporary buildings up and running, with businesses able to function properly again. In my opinion we don't need to worry about permanent structures as yet - we have time. So long as we have enough temporary things up to cater for all sporting and cultural needs we can take our time for a detailed discussion on what we really want the permanent things to look like and how they will function. 3) I would like to see no-one living without sewerage and other basic amenities. There are far too many people, some of whom I know personally, who are still living even in so-called 'green' land who are still reliant on portaloos or chemical toilets. While that's somewhat understandable in the red zone where houses won't be rebuilt, in the green zone people shouldn't be still using those things even now let alone in 9 months time. 4) I would like to see the central city open again, the cordon down, still-unsafe buildings fenced off individually and people able to start re-engaging with their city, which ties in with: 5) I'd like to see Gap Filler, Greening the Rubble etc given more leeway and more space to work in. I want to see more of the cheerful, anarchic, creative stuff that has been springing up around the city. It's frustrating to see an opportunity for creative innovation be stifled by bureaucracy and an attempt to redo the same old thing we had before. That contradicts slightly with the next point, though. 6) I'd like for a halt to be called on the demolition of the remaining heritage buildings we have and some discussion around what can and should be saved before there's literally nothing left. 7) the people living here are fully engaged with the process and not shuffled off like naughty children who are interfering in the grownups' rebuild.
How likely do I think we are to see that within the next 9 months? To be honest, not very.
5 years -- 1) I'd like to see all insurance claims properly settled and the home owners either in new houses or at least be in the chain and know when their work will be done and that it will be within a year at most. 2) all 'green' roads fixed properly and permanently. That means that all infrastructure under those roads will have been fixed as well. 3) some permanent structures will have been built - most importantly schools rebuilt, pools fixed and/or built new and all communities well on the way to recovery. We will know where the 'anchor projects' will be sited and some work may have started on the most important. 4) all community masterplans to have been decided on and all communities on the way to having those implemented. 5) the central city and the suburban hubs would be alive with temporary, experimental businesses, facilities and structures, testing out what will work best and where in the fully rebuilt city. Some of the more seemingly 'way out' ideas from 'Share an Idea' and other community idea-gathering projects will be being tested to see whether they might work in a permanent way in the future. There will be more things like the container shops that are interesting spaces to be in while the city is still transitioning to a permanent new space. 6) open, community-based decisions will have been made on the heritage we have left and the retention and/or demolition of them will feel more 'owned' by the public. They will all either be demolished or 'made safe' and being fixed. 7) Whatever needs to be demolished has been and what is left inspires the designs of buildings around it so that the city has some integrity to its design while not having it all look too much the same (which is sadly what is already happening). 8) the Avon River Park idea will have been implemented -- there will be a green belt from the city to the sea with cycle ways and a variety of community parks, gardens and facilities starting to spring up. These could again be temporary while the city works out what the best way to utilise this space would be.
How likely is this? Possibly more likely, though I'm not sure the powers that be are embracing the creative innovative temporary stuff that's happening in such a way as to have quite the exciting city I'd like to see in another 4 years. Nor do I think they are particularly interested in the design of the city which is a shame. We have an opportunity here to be amazing.
10 years -- 1) all housing rebuilt, all infrastructure relating to that housing rebuilt. 2) some of those bigger 'anchor projects' will have been built, others will be on their way. These will have been prioritised and the most important (ie the ones whose temporary facilities are less useful - like the major pool/sports complex and convention centre/town hall) may be completed or nearing completion while others will be underway or in the pipeline. 3) The temporary experiments that worked will be either permanently housed in the city or plans for how to do it properly will be underway. 4) Avon River Park will be properly operating and the government will have forgotten all their plans to 'remediate' the land and rebuild housing in the red zone. The park will feature a variety of things - from playgrounds for children to market gardens to community orchards to a 'garden trail' of the best gardens of the red zoned homes to native wetlands (all things that have been suggested). It will be primarily a leisure centre for the city and a fitting use of land that doesn't do well with heavy, dense building on it. 5) The city will still be in a state of flux (as are all cities really) but there will be a lot more certainty as to what it will look like and how it will develop in the future.
I don't expect the rebuild to be complete in 10 years by any stretch of the imagination but we should have the skeleton of the future city by 2021. I don't think we need to rush into permanence yet. There's a sense among the 'leaders' of the city that we have to get 'back to normal' as soon as we can but I think that takes away from what we have -- this is one of the few places in the world that has the opportunity to be totally crazy and creative and any move to rush into permanent things, especially permanent high-cost things, is in my opinion short sighted. If we have temporary stand ins for the things we want we have the opportunity to breathe a little and do something truly amazing. If we see 'temporary' as '2 years or so' we risk rushing into things too fast without trying out the really exciting place that 'transition city' could be. That's not to say we don't need anything permanent, but we don't need to rush the big decisions. Let the people play with the city for a bit -- see what they might come up with!