Another ‘aggressive recovery’?

Written By: - Date published: 9:05 am, February 21st, 2012 - 54 comments
Categories: disaster - Tags: ,

Key upbeat about quake recovery work – Headline

Man, if that guy was any more up beat, he would be speedcore. Well, here’s a couple of numbers that might sober Mr Smile and Wave:

  • 28,200 fewer jobs in Canterbury now than a year ago. 1 in 11 jobs lost. More if you could exclude quake-related jobs.
  • Net international emigration from Canterbury, 3,634 by December. That’s like a family of four leaving every eight hours for ten months.
  • 5,086 building consents for new or altered homes in Canterbury in 2011 vs 6,088 in 2010. 100,000 houses damaged or destroyed.

If you want to see a real recovery, look at Japan. In Christchurch’s Red Zone, you can still see plates of food, abandoned in February.

Who remembers when those idiot rightwing economists were talking about the quakes as an economic boon?

54 comments on “Another ‘aggressive recovery’? ”

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  1. marsman 1
    21 February 2012 at 9:36 am

    Fletchers is raking in the cash though with their consultancy work. Was it not Rebstock who ok’d the gifting of NZ Forest Products by Shipley to Fletchers thus creating a monopoly? Isn’t Shipley on the board of directors of Fletchers? Isn’t Shipley also on the Earthquake Recovery Committee? Go figure, some troughers have all the luck.

    • Rob 1.1
      22 February 2012 at 10:10 am

      “Fletchers raking the cash”, geez I think you will find that their forecasted earnings are 15% down. Do you do business in Chch, do you employ anyboady there. It aint easy and it has been really hard work over the last 18 months.

  2. Lanthanide 2
    21 February 2012 at 9:47 am

    I think comparing it to Japan is pretty unfair. I don’t believe they’re having to do the extent of demolition of high rise buildings like we are and they simply have a lot more resources to throw at the problem. They also haven’t had multiple damaging aftershocks (because all of theirs are well away from the shore) delaying progress.

    I have seen photos of Japan that show some places have remain almost unchanged from the tsunami – destroying buildings and rubble in the streets. We don’t really have any rubble in the streets in CHCH any more.

    • bbfloyd 2.1
      21 February 2012 at 9:57 am

      Wow! the rubble has been cleared away…. that’s impressive! i suppose we should apologise for thinking that the recovery operation has been an exercise in incompetence and posturing then…

      and you’re right, we are much more comparable to haiti than japan…

      • Lanthanide 2.1.1
        21 February 2012 at 10:03 am

        You’ll see that in most of those photos of Japan, if you actually looked at them, is swathes of crumbled up wood and concrete. It’s been cleared: generally it would just take a bulldozer and trucks to carry all the debris away. Any buildings that did need demolition in these small towns could generally be done with the bulldozers or cranes in pretty short order. However most of those pictures show blank lots with no construction on them – I’d say we’re at a pretty similar position in CHCH having cleaned up most of the rubble but yet to fully start on reconstruction.

        Furthermore, the insurance landscape in NZ is pretty unique, with EQC insuring land and buildings. In Japan, a lot of the houses destroyed wouldn’t have had any insurance for earthquakes or tsunamis simply because it was so unaffordable. Lack of red tape and i’s dotted and t’s crossed does tend to speed these things up.

        So again, comparing us to Japan isn’t fair.

        As for comparing us to Haiti, I can only presume you don’t know what you’re talking about.

        • ianmac 2.1.1.1
          21 February 2012 at 10:12 am

          Insurance here is becoming unaffordable too. My premium for house and contents on a modest 3 bedroom house has just risen by $194 to $983. Help!

          • Fortran 2.1.1.1.1
            21 February 2012 at 2:13 pm

            Ianmac

            The insurances losses from Christchurch are thirteen times the New Zealand Fire & General annual premiums. Thank goodness for the sense that EQC (and all Insurers) placed insurance (reinsurance) cover overseas. Otherwise it would fail comprehension as to what the situation could be now. There is a considerable amount of insurance money available to settle losses in addition to the New Zealand taxpayers back up support.
            Sadly Christchurch has not stopped shaking – a quake in Hawkes Bay last night would not help the perception of overseas reinsurers willingness to give any earthquake cover in New Zealand.
            These insurers expect to see a payback over short years to maintain the status quo – so we all have to pay more premiums to help correct this, otherwise there will be no earthquake insurance cover available, or as in California about 10% cover. The Japanese get no cover.

            • Draco T Bastard 2.1.1.1.1.1
              21 February 2012 at 11:55 pm

              Thank goodness for the sense that EQC (and all Insurers) placed insurance (reinsurance) cover overseas.

              Actually, if we made rational decisions those people would have been moved with all haste into state supplied temporary shelters and then as it became possible, their houses rebuilt. We can afford this because we have the resource here in NZ to do it. The problem becomes the political will to go against the rich who prefer to have the majority of people living in poverty so that they can live in luxury.

        • Colonial Viper 2.1.1.2
          21 February 2012 at 10:19 am

          The Japanese Government has spared no expense to mobilise the massive construction and engineering infrastructure of its country to get the job done.

          That’s another difference you haven’t mentioned Lanth.

          And no one here has mentioned the obvious complication that Japan is dealing with which we don’t have: nuclear reactors which have suffered melt-through.

          Excluding the nuclear issue, cost of rebuilding after the Sendai earthquake/Tsunami has been placed at US$120B or higher. That sounds like more work to be done Lanth, not less.

          In Japan, a lot of the houses destroyed wouldn’t have had any insurance for earthquakes or tsunamis simply because it was so unaffordable. Lack of red tape and i’s dotted and t’s crossed does tend to speed these things up.

          You just described japan as a land with less red tape than NZ. You must be fucking joking.

          Although of course, Japan also has a finely tuned but “bloated” civil administration which tends to be able to get on things PDQ when needed.

          You seem to want to compare NZ only with…NZ. Which doesn’t make sense if you are interested in benchmarking with best practices globally.

          • Rich 2.1.1.2.1
            21 February 2012 at 2:11 pm

            nuclear reactors

            Of course, there are plenty of Montgomery Burns types here who’d have loved us to have had those..

          • Fortran 2.1.1.2.2
            21 February 2012 at 2:17 pm

            The total GDP of New Zealand is minute in comparison with Japan, which is why there is a difference. Their building standards are different too. It is not financially comparable. We want what Japan has financially, but cannot have due to economy of scale.

            • Colonial Viper 2.1.1.2.2.1
              22 February 2012 at 12:06 am

              Did you just string together some random sentences in the hope that no one would notice?

              Our main problem is that Japan believes in itself more than we do. While we believe in hands-off free market enterprise, they believe in getting the job done.

              Yes we are much smaller than Japan but our disaster was also much smaller than Japan’s. Theirs had a nuclear component, ours did not. We had 185 or so people die; they had somewhere closing on 20,000 deaths.

              Bottom line is that we lack leadership responsibility and will; our civic heads are giving themselves $42K pay increase, and for what. Bad judgement and self interest.

              • Populuxe1 …
                22 February 2012 at 5:51 pm

                However, CV, we are enduring continual aftershocks that require reassessments of ground and buildings every time we have one – unlike Japan. Japan has better natural disaster planning than just about any other country in the world. And comparing the size of the disasters is just irrelevant – Japan is a vastly richer country than we are, regardless, with extraordinary resources to throw at reconstruction. I don’t even know why you are comparing death tolls – that has nothing to do with reconstruction, but our 9000 odd maimed very well might. Also small businesses make up the bulk of the economy and so many of them were undeclared bankrupt and wont be coming back – unlike Japan. Property owners are taking their insurance payouts and investing elsewhere – I don’t know what they’re doing in Japan. Chalk and cheese.
                I’m actually on the ground. I waiting to find out if my house is going to be demolished at a moment’s notice. If you were actually here and had lived through the horror, you might stop talking out your arse.

        • Jackal 2.1.1.3
          21 February 2012 at 10:41 am

          I think your analysis of the before and after photos is incorrect Lanthanide. There has clearly been extensive significant infrastructure work done in Japan, with the damage being far more excessive there. Sure we have a few more high-rise building’s to demolish, but did we have any container ships to move or tsunami walls to build etc?

          The photos also do not show the extent of building that has occurred in Japan. The main difference is that in New Zealand, there’s been too much wrangling over money, which has undoubtedly slowed the recovery process. The Japanese appear to have just got on with the job, instead of being delayed by bureaucratic process designed build one of the largest Tory trough’s we’ve ever seen.

          • Colonial Viper 2.1.1.3.1
            21 February 2012 at 10:46 am

            basically Japan is a country with in-house capability and a willingness to back that in-house capability with money and people. Us, we think shipping in prefab shacks from China and sparkies from Ireland is a good idea. Pathetic.

            • Populuxe1 2.1.1.3.1.1
              23 February 2012 at 12:30 am

              Well gee, CV, thank you for that insight – despite the fact that without access to insurers we can’t even begin to start rebuilding, and of course we need structures now (hence the prefabs and shipping crates), and we need to demolish structures now, and basically we don’t have enough builders in this country to tackle a job this scale. Also the Japanese aren’t having to deal with the kinds of inconveniently placed tall buildings we have to. Do continue to sit there and pontificate about something you clearly have no comprehension of.

              • Colonial Viper …
                23 February 2012 at 12:42 am

                You list lots of easily solved problems but act as if they were as tall as Everest. We are the nation who built Benmore Dam in 1958, we were one of the first nations in the Southern Hemisphere to have an electrified national grid, and here you talk as if we can’t handle this fucking simple shit. Napier was rebuilt in under 5 years in the middle of the Great Fucking Depression for gods sake. Yes maybe its because we’ve degraded our country’s faith and its capabilities to a massive degree in the last 30 years. Give me the old DPW or MoW and a very different Christchurch would have been 20% rebuilt by now.

                As for your dumbass comments on insurance. NZ has self insured before as a nation through the government and it could do so again. What are we going to do? Keep one of our largest cities in limbo until the free market decides it will insure Christchurch again? Sure that’s the NACT way.

                And we need prefab buildings now yes, but why the fuck are we importing them from Asia instead of using NZ materials and NZ labour. The answer is easy of course, the private sector can make more money off the NZ govt by using cheap ass foreign labour. YAY! A few shareholders do OK out of it I suppose.

                You say we don’t have enough builders but you are so short sighted, it will take 10 years to rebuild Christchurch, do you see the Government pushing through thousands of new trade training positions? If they had started a year ago, we would have very many young trade qualified NZers out ready in the next year or two. Instead we have fuck all.

                Also the Japanese aren’t having to deal with the kinds of inconveniently placed tall buildings we have to.

                LOLOLOLOL

                Yeah well they have to deal with several GE reactors which have suffered the world’s first ever complete reactor melt-throughs, so I’d say its even.

                Do continue to sit there and pontificate about something you clearly have no comprehension of.

                Nah you fucker I’m not an armchair warrior.

                • Populuxe1 …
                  23 February 2012 at 12:52 am

                  Forgive me, I forgot you lived in a parallel universe where Rogernomics never fucked over the public and manufacturing sectors. However, in this universe we need real, affordable solutions in a hurry. For some of us the situation is not an amusing Gedankenexperiment stick with which to beat the government and the capitalists from the comfort of our armchair – it’s very real, very unpleasant, and you are full of shit.

                  • Colonial Viper …
                    23 February 2012 at 12:58 am

                    However, in this universe we need real, affordable solutions in a hurry.

                    Solutions in a hurry? How’s that working out for you then? What did I hear Bollard say the other day? Sometime well into 2013 is when rebuilding is going to really kick off? Notice how that date has been pushed back about 3 times now? Do you reckon it’ll be pushed back again in 2H 2012? I reckon it will be. Is that what you call “in a hurry?”

                    yeah rogernomics and ruthanasia fucked with the technical, trade and operational capabilities of this country.

                    And instead of seeing this as a massive opportunity for getting some of that back – I remind you, we could have trained trades people pouring out of our institutions in a couple of years but guess what precious little has even been done there – you are proposing a bullshit short term expedient strategy which isn’t even delivering.

                    Gedankenexperiment stick with which to beat the government and the capitalists from the comfort of our armchair – it’s very real, very unpleasant, and you are full of shit.

                    Nah its people like Brownlee, parker and Maryatt who are treating this like a fucking experiment.

                    We have self insured as a country before through the government and we could do so again.

                    You can;t seem to handle that fact that your excuses – such as having to wait for free market insurers to ride in to the rescue – are nothing more than neoliberal excuses. Where the hell is your fancy advanced Marxist theory shit now bro. Time to apply it eh.

                    • Populuxe1 …
                      23 February 2012 at 1:07 am

                      We have to wait on the free market solution because it’s we’ve been left with unless there’s a snap election in the next few days. I am not “proposing a bullshit short term expedient strategy which isn’t even delivering,” I am latching on to it because we we are seriously short of affordable retail and accommodation space, and the looming crisis is only going to get worse. Even now buildings are being condemned as every aftershock means the have to be re-assessed. Don’t patronise me, I live it.
                       

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      23 February 2012 at 1:23 am

                      Our leaders are letting us down bad. That’s my point. I understand the need to latch on to a solution, any solution. But if the lifeboat is sinking with the ship, what then?

                      Our pathetic excuses for ‘leadership’ need to come clean and talk about whether or not an orderly and planned depopulation of Christchurch is required instead of just letting it chaotically happen through uncertainty and ongoing wear and tear on peoples and infrastructure. There is every chance that Christchurch is in for 10-20 years of serious seismic instability. No one is owning up to that scenario because it is too unpalatable to swallow.

                      We have to wait on the free market solution because it’s we’ve been left with unless there’s a snap election in the next few days.

                      Lots of my friends have taken a look at this scenario and come to their own conclusions. They have left the city permanently. Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, and Oz are all favourite destinations.

                      Best of luck, I recognise there is little good about the most likely scenarios out there.

        • bbfloyd 2.1.1.4
          22 February 2012 at 1:26 am

          L..what was that last line i wrote.? try again properly this time….

  3. tsmithfield 3
    21 February 2012 at 10:27 am

    I agree totally with Lanth.

    IMO out-of-towners should STFU unless they have done some actual research on the difficulties confronted here with rebuilding the city.

    • Colonial Viper 3.1
      21 February 2012 at 10:43 am

      A Government owned and underwritten insurance capability like we had in the 1970’s would’ve been a good start. A Ministry of Works capable of not just planning and design but also execution like we had in the 1970’s would’ve been a good start. The ability to show the private sector how it is done via a bit of good old fashioned Public Service attitude would be a good start.

      Everybody here is crying how its so difficult. What about the useless fucking leadership which has been too apparent from the CEO of the council trying to justify outlandish pay increases for himself, to the EQC hiring unqualified mates and children on cushy contracts, to Gerry Brownlee seemingly comfortable that Christchurch does not have to be NZ made, but is OK with prefabs from Asia and imported labour from Ireland even as our youth unemployment rate is through the roof.

      • Rob 3.1.1
        22 February 2012 at 10:13 am

        Ministry of Works, you have to be kidding right.

        • Colonial Viper 3.1.1.1
          23 February 2012 at 12:47 am

          Why kidding? The old MoW built most of the infrastructure our whole nation sits on and depends on. Learn up bro and be proud of NZ history.

          • Populuxe1 3.1.1.1.1
            23 February 2012 at 12:56 am

            Well what a fucking pity the MoW hasn’t existed since 1988, then! I’ll keep that in mind while I’m trying to pack together a few valuables before they knock my building down. Words fail me!

    • vto 3.2
      21 February 2012 at 10:44 am

      Bloody hell you’re rough with people sometimes tsmithfield – you sound like me at time…

      You do raise a point that grabbed my attention in the weekend – something that the fool Fran O’Sullivan commented on, and then Anthony Hubbard in the SST and even Michael Laws (not that he counts). They all said something along the lines “the Chch rebuild needs to have started by now. It is taking too long and it is not good enough”.

      I can understand how that view may arise outside of Chch but it isn’t actually fully informed. There are three main reasons for the delays to date..

      1. Earthquakes are still happenning. The ones on Dec 23 would have flattenned the city had it not already been flattenned in Febnruary last year. The earthquakes do need to ease up one hell of a lot before rebuilding can seriously get underway. The earthquakes have not stopped yet.

      2. Insurance. Insurance is still not available for pretty much all of the rebuild, whether it is new buildings, new housing or new sewer pipes. No insurance. Too risky to build yet – who wants to build something to have it levelled or wrecked in a few months time? Who would insure property in Chch – any Standardistas ?

      3. The CBD is still being pulled down. Can’t rebuild while it is still being demolished. It is nearly done though. Once the bulldozers and diggers and nibblers are gone I suspect we will turn a corner.

      So, imo there is some misunderstanding of the situation here which is fueling some issues.

      And relating that back to the post at hand – there is still some dawdle (i.e. not an aggressive recovery), and there is still a draining of people and resources. It will be a long haul – tuck yourself in and hold on for the ride. Btw, next shakes in May..

      • Colonial Viper 3.2.1
        21 February 2012 at 10:53 am

        The ongoing earthquakes are a real problem.

        The interesting thought experiment is how you would manage the rebuild if you knew ahead of time when the big earthquakes would stop/restart.

        Let’s say that it was guaranteed that Christchurch would get 18 full months of quiet time, but that a mag 6.5 would occur sometime Aug 2013.

        Would this foreknowledge stop or start the rebuild immediately? Would the insurance companies start approving policies immediately or would they hold off longer? And why?

        Because ‘uncertainty’ is one thing which is getting in the way of Christchurch being rebuilt. Yet if that uncertainty was taken away as in the thought experiment above – what would actually happen?

        • vto 3.2.1.1
          21 February 2012 at 11:35 am

          hmmm, I suspect it would make more people leave actually. They would say “bugger this, I aint staying around for that – let’s go”. And I suspect that the driver would be the risk around the 6.5, not the quiet lead time beforehand, so no rebuilding would get done.

          Regarding leadership – here is one area it is severely lacking… Given that there is a full rebuild of the city’s infrastructure there is of course also an opportunity to future-proof it. So, in other words, don’t just repair what has been broken but upgrade it for the future population and circumstances. Example – stormwater – needs repairing, but also needs upgrade to account for sea-level rise. Also could do with canal/river lock systems around the bridges and now is the time to do it. Similarly, sewer pipes need replacing with something appropriate for the future….

          But eh leadership vacuum shows up here. I understand from well within that there is nobody driving these particular issues re future-proofing. No elected memeber, no bureaucrat, no consultant. It is actually sitting in a vacuum. It needs leadership to understand what is needed, to work out who pays what proportion, etc etc.

          This is one example of where the leadership are spending too much time calling each other clowns and not enough time sitting down with engineers working out the stormwater system needed for a water table rise of 0.5m.

          • tsmithfield 3.2.1.1.1
            21 February 2012 at 12:01 pm

            VTO: “Bloody hell you’re rough with people sometimes tsmithfield – you sound like me at time…”

            Yeah. It does piss me off a bit when I see comments from people who have absolutely no idea what the actual situation is.

            My son’s girlfriend lives in Parklands, on the east side of Christchurch. They have a very nice house, that is quite liveable. However due to sinking foundations and some major cracks in the foundations, their house is a total rebuild. Each time there has been a major quake, liquifaction has stuffed their street. They have had their street resealed three times now. Now after December 23 it is stuffed again. IMO, the council should just fill in the holes, grade it, and wait until the geotechnical assessment is that no more large aftershocks are likely.

            So far as rebuilding their house is concerned, their land has been graded as green category three. There is absolutely no point in rebuilding their house at the moment because:

            1. Their house is perfectly liveable.
            2. Why rebuild if there is a good chance of major damage from another large aftershock?
            3. New foundation standards for this category of land are still being developed and tested.

            The center of the city is another major problem. The land there is seriously dodgy for rebuilding large buildings on. So, rushing into a rebuild there is plain stupidity.

            On the other hand, my parents (red zoned) are rebuilding at the moment in Wigram Skies, which is some of the best land available so far as earthquakes go. So things are happening.

            • Lanthanide 3.2.1.1.1.1
              21 February 2012 at 2:36 pm

              Why do these developers pick such bourgeois names for their developments like “Wigram Skies”?

              • tsmithfield …
                21 February 2012 at 4:51 pm

                All to do with the Wigram Airbase that’s being built on now.

                My parents are building their house on “Spitfire lane”. I agree. Its pretty twee.

    • bbfloyd 3.3
      22 February 2012 at 1:57 am

      ts…you just included 90% of the population in that spray…….. and an excellent attempt to miss the point of the comment….

      the lack of vision being shown by the decisionmakers who have given themselves the final say on what shape christchurch takes is worryingly myopic…. does it not compute that people all over the may actually care deeply that the future of the city, and it’s people, is being held in stasis, and may well be left to languish that way for who knows how long?

      is it certain that the city should be built on top of the existing site? after a year, i would have expected that to have been settled at least…. considering the sheer number of shocks predicted for the foreseeable future, is it reasonable to relocate to more stable ground? these are fair questions.. there are many more where that came from, and if i lived in an affected area, i would definitely want to know what the options are long before now….

      if you looked up occasionally, you may be surprised to find that not only locals care about what shape christchurch will take….the success, or lack of, the rebuild, will be part of what defines us as new zealanders in the future….. if you can get your head around that, then that’s a good start..

    • Populuxe1 3.4
      22 February 2012 at 5:53 pm

      ^^^ This + a google plex to the tenth power

  4. Tombstone 4
    21 February 2012 at 11:04 am

    I live in Christchurch and it breaks my heart that after all we have endured that our city is still lying in ruins while bureaucrats and corporate thugs line their pockets at our expense and bleed this city dry. It’s not the quakes stopping the rebuild moving forward – it’s bureaucracy. The CEO is a fucking insult to the people of this city and should fuck off along with Parker, Brownlee, CERA and EQC. The lot of them are just a pack of useless, over paid wankers who have made people’s lives an abject misery by their incompetent decision making. Fuck box city and cardboard cathedrals – we need a real functioning city and we needed it yesterday! Time this rebuild finally kicked into high gear and we got on with what needs doing. Key just talks shit and he can fuck off as well. Rant over.

    • tc 4.1
      21 February 2012 at 11:52 am

      And yet the election result seems to indicate the folk in chch reckon the nat’s rock…..go figure.

      • Andy-Roo 4.1.1
        21 February 2012 at 12:40 pm

        I thought that the turnout told a different story…

        Still – no excuses for the idiots who voted Nicky Wagner into CHCH Central…

        • Blighty 4.1.1.1
          21 February 2012 at 1:32 pm

          christchurch was the only area in the country were the number of aprty votes for National increased, that’s despite a big drop in turnout. Across the rest of the country, National’s number of party votes actually fell.

          A bit like asset sales, people are getting pissed off 3 months too late.

          Ironically, if not for National’s increased vote in Chch, it would have no majority for asset sales.

    • Draco T Bastard 4.2
      21 February 2012 at 2:01 pm

      My nephew, a builder, has consistently said that rebuilding of Christchurch is a ten year plus job – and that’s after the aftershocks have finished.

      • Fortran 4.2.1
        21 February 2012 at 2:23 pm

        Your nephew could be well right – after the aftershocks quieten down, and that has been said by scientists in last Saturday’s Herald, could be up to 30 years. New Zealand has been made up of new fold mountains, from Gondwanaland, over hundreds of millions of years. It will not adjust in a few short years.
        A major rethink must be found and soon.

        • Lanthanide 4.2.1.1
          21 February 2012 at 2:39 pm

          The scientists saying it would take 30 years just mean “30 years to get to background level”, not that we’ll have 30 years worth of 3 or 4 5-6M quakes as we’ve had in 2010 and 2011.

          Up until now, Canterbury had been very systemically sound. I can only recall having felt about 4 quakes ever (living here for my whole life of 27 years). That’s far fewer than they get in most parts of the north island.

          • Colonial Viper 4.2.1.1.1
            22 February 2012 at 12:15 am

            Problem is, can you tell if the current heightened level of seismic activity is the normal that it is returning to (which means that your quiet 27 years was the exception), or the other way around (which means that your quiet 27 years is the norm).

      • Hami Shearlie 4.2.2
        22 February 2012 at 11:59 pm

        So, we have ten years to train up many young people in Christchurch to be builders, plumbers, electricians, painters, roofers, concrete layers etc! So why aren’t we? Not in the nats’ bible I guess!

  5. vto 5
    21 February 2012 at 2:17 pm

    .
    christchurch town,
    shaky town,
    going up, going down,
    lost its gown,
    set in frown,
    christchurch town,
    shaky town,
    .
    .
    .

  6. Rich 6
    21 February 2012 at 2:20 pm

    I think the real problem is this:

    If you were an insured building owner in the Christchurch CBD, you are now (or will shortly be) sitting on a cleared site and a pile of insurance money. Unless you can get a better return on that money putting up a new building on the site than just banking it (or buying a building in Auckland or Sydney) it’s better to leave the space as a car park. The economics of property development in NZ have been pretty marginal for a while (look at all the bankrupt developers and empty sites in our major cities).

    As far as I can see from wandering around Christchurch there are lots of cleared sites, I hear there are lots of unemployed/idle builders and the government was supposed to have removed the “red tape”. So if building isn’t going to start now, when will it start?

    • Draco T Bastard 6.1
      21 February 2012 at 5:35 pm

      The economics of property development in NZ have been pretty marginal for a while (look at all the bankrupt developers and empty sites in our major cities).

      That’s because went all free-market and off-shored everything except farming.

    • Colonial Viper 6.2
      22 February 2012 at 12:19 am

      Yep you are right. A big insurance payout is like getting your building sold instantly. Except in this case, the tenants you previously had have either all gone bust or moved somewhere else, and the risk of not being able to get insurance in the future (or new tenants) is going to lead exactly where you suggest. Pocketing the money, not rebuilding..

      it’s better to leave the space as a car park.

      No new businesses, no noew buildings, no traffic, no cars, no cars no need for car parks.

      Personally I think that land won’t be used for car parking, it’ll be used for grazing. Yes you read that right.

  7. Hami Shearlie 7
    23 February 2012 at 12:06 am

    From what I’ve seen on tv, many of the ruined houses are brick, on a concrete slab foundation. We live in a cedar house on short tanilised pole foundations, with a longrun metal roof. Apparently this light construction, in an earthquake, is able to move and sway with the earth movement. One of the biggest problems seems to be the concrete slab foundation of many of the houses in Christchurch, which obviously can’t move at all in a quake and so it cracks, letting in liquefaction and sinking. Maybe brick and concrete will have to go in the Christchurch of the future. Wonder if anybody else has info on better construction methods for new builds in Christchurch?

    • mik e 7.1
      23 February 2012 at 12:19 am

      Hami only one wooden constructed house was destroyed in the Ch Ch earthquake it was the home of NZ’s most famous antique furniture collector.An hicklty picklty built house that had cantilevered rooms hanging in precarious angles which were definitely not engineered all other wooden buildings are still intact that tells you something.A building sounding not unlike yours was built by an architect in a small village on the Rangiora river and has stood up well to the earthquake. but Cera have condemned the whole village.