For a locally led recovery
By Marney Ainsworth
Marney is a spokesperson for the group Option 3+ that is advocating for a locally led recovery. This article was published in the Press on 3 December 2015.
The Government is currently seeking feedback on what will replace Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera) and the Christchurch Central Development Unit (CCDU) next April 2016.
The feeling that the leadership and control of the city needs to return to local institutions, communities, and people is widespread.
The democratically elected local councils have publicly stated their desire to lead this process.
At the end of July, almost 2500 people made submissions to the Government supporting a locally led recovery and an end to Government veto and control.
Even the Government agrees. Its discussion document (p 10) released in July 2015, said: “International research shows that, for recovery to be sustainable in the long term, it needs to be ‘owned’ and led by local communities and institutions.”
On 24 November, The Press reported that over 75 per cent of the city’s people do not feel there is a strong vision to lead the city.
Massive amounts of money and time have been spent by CCDU and Cera with only marginal positive outcomes for the city, a view seemingly shared by Treasury. By the end of 2015, only three of the government’s eighteen anchor projects had been finished, a number have been cancelled, and almost every project delayed.
There is widespread distrust in the government’s leadership of the central city and its plans for the large parts of the city now owned by the State.
This amounts to a failure of post-quake planning and ministerial leadership.
It’s not as if the Government doesn’t know how to do better. In Auckland, it has signed up to a set of principles, values, and outcomes to underpin the regeneration of Tamaki. The same set of principles around transparency, accountability, and community engagement, if applied authentically to Christchurch, would make a huge difference.
Christchurch is a mature city with an educated and highly skilled population and many strong and capable leaders across business, community, NGO, political, education and other areas.
Sure, there are some major issues at the Christchurch City Council as recent reports highlight. Poor local democracy is an argument for more and better local democracy, not the semi-dictatorship we have now.
It is time for local leadership and community participation to be supported and enabled by legislation.
Option3plus is a group that formed to campaign for a locally led recovery. While we support the focus on the regeneration of the CBD, the Residential Red Zone, and New Brighton, we have other concerns with the Bill — the fine print does not match the rhetoric. The current proposals will add layers of bureaucracy and government intervention rather than reduce them.
Ministers will still have the final say on recovery or regeneration plans. This isn’t consistent with what the politicians are saying in public. Neither is it acceptable to us, the people affected.
We want a full withdrawal of the government from committees, ministerial intervention, and other mechanisms before the end of 2018.
With this in mind, Option3plus has developed some other ideas for submissions.
We want the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill to be rewritten to emphasise five main points.
1. Change the purpose of the legislation. Make the only purpose to restore and lift the dignity, prosperity, well-being, and long-term resilience of the ecology, infrastructure, people, and communities of greater Christchurch.
Do it in a way that facilitates the design and delivery of place-based ecological, social, and economic programmes.
2. Make it about regeneration AND transformation. Define transformation as a framework that supports long-term sustainable ecological, cultural, social and economic development. Define clear Transformation Objectives that include the requirement to develop a shared vision.
As in Tamaki, recognise that community and values and well-being must be rebuilt from the ground up.
3. Require authentic and active engagement with communities. Make it mandatory for active, authentic, and transparent engagement with communities when developing, implementing and evaluating regeneration and transformation plans. Give communities the right to request regeneration plans.
Because the word stakeholder has become another way of saying VIP, we want stakeholders defined as communities. Define communities as the people who live and work in Greater Christchurch. Require accountability and responsiveness to communities’ self-identified and researched needs.
4. Return the Local Government Act as the lead legislation. Require that all decisions taken under this Act are consistent with the Local Government Act and the Resource Management Act. Stand down the Minister of Earthquake Recovery and make the Minister of Local Government the principal government decision maker.
Require those powers to be exercised in consultation with the affected local Council and with tangata whenua — eliminate all rights of government veto over local decision-making.
5. Limit CrownCo to existing CBD anchor projects only so that it exists only to complete to complete, or abandon, the projects that are already part of the Central City Blueprint.
Submissions on the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill close 11pm this Friday, December 4.
Submit at:
and if you are happy to talk to the select committee in person indicate this too.
