A lake for Christchurch?
May 9th, 2012 at 4:00 pm by David FarrarThe Press reports:
Outspoken property investor Sir Bob Jones says Christchurch should replace its former central business district with “a massive lake”.
Writing in this week’s The Listener, Jones urges the city to build on its “garden city” reputation and abandon thoughts of resurrecting a high-rise CBD.
Under its central-city proposal, Christchurch would replace its destroyed building stock – described by Gerry Brownlee as “old dungers” – with “new dungers”.
“Here’s the answer,” writes Jones.
The Government should use its powers to seize all the central-city sites and “create a massive irregular-shaped lake” on the destroyed CBD land.
He suggested each former CBD site owner be allocated a lakeside site, its size reflecting the former rating value.
“Along the lake edge could be sandy beaches, with rafts anchored offshore to swim to,” he says.
“Elsewhere, perhaps, could be deeper coves with fixed diving boards and waterslides.”
Jones also suggested introducing trout and white swans to the lake, with a rebuilt modern cathedral as its centrepiece.
He said the world’s best cities, such as Vancouver, Sydney and Hong Kong, were all sited around lakes or harbours and it was not unheard of to create one retrospectively.
You know, that’s possibly the best idea I’ve heard for the Christchurch CBD. It may not be practical but it is visionary.
I also liked Sir Bob’s vision for Wellington to make Lampton Quay into a vehicle free mall.
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May 9th, 2012 at 4:06 pm
We already have a lake in Hagley Park.
Personally I think we should rent the CBD out to people making post-apocalyptic movies.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 4:07 pm
Sounds too creative for our small minds to take in.
If Hagley Park was unaffected by the earthquakes, why not shift the CBD there and make the present CBD into a memorial park and recreation area with a lake etc.
It was dying anyway so this is the chance to build the kind of city centre needed for the modern world.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 4:10 pm
Fucking love the lake idea.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 4:12 pm
If the lake is going to be the size of the CBD there won’t be enough room around the edge of it to give an equal amount of land to everybody who had land in the CBD.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 4:17 pm
Lake Twenty-two?
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 4:18 pm
Lake Quake
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 4:23 pm
Forgot to say that great harbour city Wellington!
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 4:25 pm
I don’t think all the ducks will be compatible with sandy beaches and agree it would need to be a lot smaller than the old CBD to be viable but it’s an interesting idea. Not much chance of CERA managing something like that, though.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 4:27 pm
BeaB – Hagley Park was munted after the quakes … however I love the idea of a proper large lake in the middle of our great city. Won”t happen though !!
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 4:33 pm
It’s not a bad idea… Most of the eastern side of that town used to be swamps, and the water table is pretty close to the surface even at the CBD. Would be one of the easier places to build an artificial lake.
There’s always something a bit pants about an artificial, ornamental lake though. No matter how wide, long or pretty it is, once you know it’s only a metre deep and it was dug out in 3 weeks by Mitch Ugh Contracting (2010) Ltd with their big D-12 Terex scraper, any magic it might have had is mostly lost…
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 4:35 pm
Lampton ==> Lambton
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 4:35 pm
Wouldn’t the foreshore of such a lake be the property of Ngai Tahu?
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 4:40 pm
mikenmild – it certainly would be if they paid for the whole project!
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 4:43 pm
As a Christchurch resident I have no problem with the concept beyond it’s shear financial, and I suspect physical, impossibility.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 4:46 pm
Yeah, see, it’s the lake that makes the middle of Canberra the vibrant and lively city centre that it is. Oh, how we all wish we could live in Canberra…
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 4:50 pm
I’m going to need a row boat to get to work.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 5:02 pm
Sandy beaches? A harbour? Wouldn’t it be novel for Christchurch to have either of those…?
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 5:02 pm
They could always put, you know, a city there. With buildings that are built to the modern building code, that won’t fall down and kill people next time.
Vote:It would also be a good chance to make the city more car-friendly, since that’s why it was dying to start with.
May 9th, 2012 at 5:10 pm
Yeah, Bob Jones for PM!!
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 5:12 pm
Yet more proof that there is no direct correlation between intelligence and business success.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 5:18 pm
gazzmaniac
May 9th, 2012 at 5:02 pm
The quake was a “strike-slip event with oblique motion”—mostly horizontal movement with some vertical movement[30]—with reverse thrust (i.e. vertical movement upwards).[3] The vertical acceleration was far greater than the horizontal acceleration.[30] The intensity felt in Christchurch was MM VIII.[31] The peak ground acceleration (PGA) in central Christchurch exceeded 1.8g (i.e. 1.8 times the acceleration of gravity),[32] with the highest recording 2.2g, at Heathcote Valley Primary School,[3] a shaking intensity equivalent to MM X+.[33] This is the highest PGA ever recorded in New Zealand; the highest reading during the September 2010 event was 1.26g, recorded near Darfield.[32] The PGA is also one of the greatest ever ground accelerations recorded in the world,[34] and was unusually high for a 6.3 quake.[17] and the highest in a vertical direction.[35] The central business district (CBD) experienced PGAs in the range of 0.574 and 0.802 g.[36] In contrast, the 7.0 Mw 2010 Haiti earthquake had an estimated PGA of 0.5g.
The acceleration occurred mainly in a vertical direction,[30] with eyewitness accounts of people being tossed into the air.[34] The upwards (positive acceleration) was greater than the downwards, which had a maximum recording of 0.9g; the maximum recorded horizontal acceleration was 1.7g[35] The force of the quake was “statistically unlikely” to occur more than once in 1000 years, according to one seismic engineer, with a PGA greater than many modern buildings were designed to withstand.[37] New Zealand building codes require a building with a 50-year design life to withstand predicted loads of a 500-year event; initial reports by GNS Science suggest ground motion “considerably exceeded even 2500-year design motions”,[38] beyond maximum considered events (MCE).[39] By comparison, the 2010 quake—in which damage was predominantly to pre-1970s buildings—exerted 65% of the design loading on buildings.[37] The acceleration experienced in February 2011 would “totally flatten” most world cities, causing massive loss of life; in Christchurch, New Zealand’s stringent building codes limited the disaster.[16] However, the most severe shaking lasted only 12 seconds, which perhaps prevented more extensive damage.[39]
Speaking with some architects I know and looking at the basic facts above, I think the buildings did remarkably well. 1 life lost is too many but it really could have been far worse.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 5:19 pm
Just wait 100 years or so and it will be a tidal lagoon.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 5:25 pm
Luc – or a glacier moraine, depending on the then current alarmist fashion.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 5:35 pm
If we had a repeat of this, wouldn’t a lake generate a mini-tsunami?
I like the idea, but let’s not forget that a large strip of land along the residential strip along the Avon river is red zoned, so the city is already losing a large portion of land to what will probably become (sub)urban wetland parks.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 5:45 pm
The hard part would be naming it.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 5:53 pm
“Yet more proof that there is no direct correlation between intelligence and business success.”
hahaha its just not fair is it m@tt? youre so smart and yet earn a modest income lmao
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 5:58 pm
Bob Jones is taking the piss, and it’s not the first time.
Vote:Remember the chain smoking mice?
May 9th, 2012 at 6:07 pm
A difficult man Sir Bob.
Vote:But it’s always worth thinking about what he says.
May 9th, 2012 at 6:10 pm
This is the second time Jones has said this.
And he is right.
Why?
Well because city centre’s are a dying place. One only has to look at Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, and many other cities to know that they are becoming ghost towns. And the rate payers are being forced to stump up to support them. We don’t need large chunks of high rise in our rural cities. Big cities perhaps but we don’t evn have one.
Business is no longer of a kind that needs large highrise buildings, being mostly smaller than ever in terms of staffing and more able to be run from many more places. We don’t need highrise for making stuff because we actually make bugger all anymore, so that leaves just hotels, lawyers and accountants and coffee shops as most other retail is either going online or to the malls which won’t go to the city centre.
So Jones is more right than most of you think.
Oh and I forgot the ever increasing Govt. Dept.’s. We need to downsize and decentralise what is left of them Smartly.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 6:11 pm
Lake on top of an earthquake zone!!!
Wot about the tsunami risk? Silly idea.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 6:20 pm
I don’t think you can generate a tsunami on a lake.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 6:34 pm
V2
I wonder if anyone has actually sat down & thought about who is going to occupy all the flash new buildings in a rebuilt Christchurch CBD. Any business still going will have well adapted to operating in another location & will probably be reluctant to pay astronomical rents for expensive floor space in new buildings built to extreme seismic specifications.
At least the proposed lake would be cheaper & look better than rows of untenanted high rises.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 6:39 pm
Why not make a big fucking lake and build floating houses, business, footpaths etc, like they have in Dutch land, then when the next quake strikes the buildings will not break up or shift on their foundations, they simply float. Of course you can’t go to high but it sure would be different.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 6:40 pm
Viking2
Vote:You are right
Add big office blocks with hundred of cubical monkeys are a thing of the past
Haven’t these retards heard of the INTERNET
Even some of us old fogies get it
young execs with crackberries or apple products live on line
Those that are of the connected generation
Will communicate electronically even when you are in the same room
Building city think 2040 not 1980
Same problem with len and his train set living in the past not the future
May 9th, 2012 at 6:42 pm
Just put the whole city centre up for tender and let the new owners build whatever they want.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 6:47 pm
New Mike says “let the market decide”
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 6:50 pm
Griff
The man’s a capitalist at heart!
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 6:53 pm
I just don’t really care what happens to Christchurch, but letting some committee decide will just leave us with years of moaning. Sell it all to Kim Dotcom to build some huge trashy palace, for all I care.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 6:55 pm
I think the depth and breadth of argument on here has persuaded him as to the only true path
Vote:Next thing PG will fall of the fence
May 9th, 2012 at 6:59 pm
Of course Dotcom could have his own F1 racetrack as well. I’m sure they’d like that in Christchurch. Way classier than that dreary Cathedral Square.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 7:06 pm
You guys are so easily trolled
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 7:06 pm
No such thing as a lake tsunami, there is an earthquake phenomen called a seiche. Will also effect Wellington Harbour, it was observed occuring after the 1855 Wairarapa earthquake up to three days later.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 7:07 pm
Now you really are talking sense mike
Vote:do you know how big f1 is world wide
Lots of loverly rich people to fleece
But I would be surprised if Kim stays in NewZealand after the way our stupid leaders have treated him
Have a look at the logo for mclaran
We have a little recognized but quite significant history in motor racing
May 9th, 2012 at 7:12 pm
Mobile Michael
I remember reading something about that. The Captain of some RN ship wrote that the effect was similar to king tides at three hour intervals….probably like coffee sloshing in a cup.
Sort of buggers the idea of Christchurch CBD becoming the surfing Mecca of the Southern hemisphere.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 7:18 pm
Creating an artificial lake in the CBD is an idea, but not a very practical one:
1) Earthworks are very very expensive. Where are you going to truck all the contaminated soil? This isn’t greenfield we are talking about. Who is going to pay for it? The taxpayer?
2) Whose decision is it? Sounds like something only possible in a totalitarian regime (preferably one with lots of oil money).
3) A lake with weak ground at the periphery = large ground failures (slips) in the next earthquake (similar to observed along the Avon, Kaiapoi River, and Courtenay Drive in the recent quakes). Unless you also spend a truckload improving the soils around the banks of the lake, you are *creating* a significant seismic hazard.
Scaling this back to a riverside park along the Avon isn’t a bad idea, but again there is the issue of paying for it.
4) There is a lot of investment in infrastructure already in the CBD; services such as power, gas, telecoms/ fibre optic cables, water, sewer, roads, etc. Abandoning that while we expand the city in other directions seems silly.
A smaller CBD is likely, and one with modern buildings that are significantly more quake safe. The new city will be the safest in New Zealand with respect to earthquakes going forward.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 7:32 pm
The impact of the earthquakes has had a significant effect on the building codes also on the cost of building though out new Zealand
Vote:Even in areas were there is little likelihood of significant quakes
The over the top regulations are pointless and add unnecessary cost and complexity
May 9th, 2012 at 7:35 pm
Griff (1,940) Says:
May 9th, 2012 at 6:40 pm
Viking2
You are right
Add big office blocks with hundred of cubical monkeys are a thing of the past
Haven’t these retards heard of the INTERNET
Even some of us old fogies get it
young execs with crackberries or apple products live on line
Those that are of the connected generation
Will communicate electronically even when you are in the same room
Already have freinds who run their business that way. Making more money than 97% of Kiwi’s.
And I send messages to the wife’s facebook rather than have discussion. Just easier.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 7:36 pm
4) There is a lot of investment in infrastructure already in the CBD; services such as power, gas, telecoms/ fibre optic cables, water, sewer, roads, etc. Abandoning that while we expand the city in other directions seems silly.
Most of it old and stuffed anyway.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 7:41 pm
Griff
I think you might find that the driver of the new building codes is the difficulty of finding anyone prepared to accept the risk of insuring structures in NZ. The Christchurch quakes really spooked the overseas reassurers.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 7:53 pm
How many buildings does Bob Jones own in Christchurch? and how many does he want to buy or build?
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 7:53 pm
That also came up in a recent discussion with a building inspector
Vote:We are called the shaky isles for a reason
we have also been paying a significant levy for a long time
Where has that gone siphoned of to the general account?
Edgecome was the last significant shake and there was little between that and Napier
Up here in the north we are far more likely to get a volcano then a decent shake
May 9th, 2012 at 8:08 pm
Go jump in the lake Bob.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 8:08 pm
Griff
If you are referring to the EQC levy, the fund only provides limited cover & then only to residential buildings. My business & personal insurance is done through a broker & he reckons that any commercial building not up to code is really difficult to get cover for at any price.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 8:19 pm
Interesting – from what I’ve heard about the moves afoot to get some kind of BS “earthquake-star” rating system for commercial buildings introduced here, it sounds like the insurance industry has never EVER bothered to educate itself about earthquakes, or earthquake design in buildings**; and consequently the premiums they have been charging to cover these buildings in seismic areas like New Zealand have been more or less plucked out of the air…
**E.g. subtle modern things like ductile design, where a building stays together and doesn’t collapse, so it protects the lives of the occupants, but after the quake stops it is on a slight lean and so badly damaged that it is an insurance write-off.. this appears to have come as a bolt out of the blue to Chch insurers…
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 8:29 pm
Let a charter city be built there,…free of the repressive and retarded regulations that cripple the rest of the country….
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 8:31 pm
They should build a lovely little lakey thing, so all the lovely little lamby and peopley things can go for a lovely little swimmy thing and all you dumbarse little taxpayery things can fork out a little more of the easily spent but hard to earn little reddy papery things with the photo of that wisey old physicy thing on them!
Bob should have been a Dairy Farmer.
He is pulling all your tits at once!
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 8:31 pm
RRM
Insurance is not a subject I pretend to have useful knowledge about but from what I was told the real pressure is coming from the overseas reassurers. They are jittery & very cautious of taking on any new risk anywhere in NZ.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 8:32 pm
Senility is a hell of a thing!
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 8:46 pm
Once again Sir Bob is dead right.
Although, it would make more sense just to turn the entire bloody place into a lake.
And before you comment Tinny….think of the fishing!
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 8:47 pm
Some may have heard this before*
We should not have such a regulated environment for building in new Zealand
The regulators were responsible for the leaky home debacle
why not let insurance and resale value dictate the standard of building work
the pain would be no more than the cost of the leaky home cluster fuck
And would enable a range of building techniques to be evaluated by the insurance and resale markets
far more flexible than bureaucracy and lets face it there are plenty of pre building code housing still standing and habitable after many decades
*when will the Phoenix of act arise
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 8:51 pm
Or we could get some proper plans for really solid houses from Egypt?
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 8:57 pm
Griff, absolutely right. The market would have solved the leaky homes problem fast and cheaply if the courts hadn’t dumped the responsibility and cost on the councils. Utter madness. The Govt should just have changed the law to make it explicit that the councils are only responsible for health and safety as they were historically.
Now we have a massive mad bureaucracy with huge delays and costs and all set for the next disaster to be dumped onto ratepayers.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 8:58 pm
mikeinmild…
“I don’t think you can generate a tsunami on a lake.”
You’ve not seen my brother-in-law’s ex wife jump into a swimming pool…
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 9:03 pm
The troll is Bob Jones
Vote:Wonder what he is really up to?
May 9th, 2012 at 9:05 pm
Are you going wacky on us john boy
Vote:The sheep thing Meh its pretty lonely out there in the back the paddocks
And if its sheep country its more roomy and more hilly than the those tit pullers like
Shes a long way back to the missus if the idea comes
but living in a pyramid
thats nutbar greeny altie bullshit
May 9th, 2012 at 9:24 pm
Forget the lake, build a a Disney Land-type theme park, anchored by hotels, restaurants and a convention centre.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 9:27 pm
Won’t they need a bigger casino too, to afford a convention centre?
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 9:32 pm
Probably just need two more casinos – easy.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 9:33 pm
We’d better get John Banks on to it….I understand he’s now fully up to speed with the way Casinos fund their patrons & convention centres.
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 9:54 pm
Griff –
The indemnity insurance industry has been advising engineers and architects not to sign the new “memorandum of restricted building work” from the DBH because they don’t like the wording of the declaration at the end of it and they have no stomach for the potential consequences.
Given that, somehow I can’t see the property insurers wanting to do their own independent detailed assessments of every new product and system that comes on the market, and I can’t see builders and developers wanting to wait around while that happens either.
The regulatory system isn’t perfect, but it is better than at least SOME of the possible alternatives, that is why it has evolved the way it has; it wasn’t suddenly imposed on us complete fully formed in all its infernal treachery by the Devil Incarnate himself
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 10:02 pm
Lake, excellent idea. Now Bob and Gerry go jump in it
Vote:May 9th, 2012 at 10:43 pm
I entered the building industry in 2002
Vote:It did not take a vast knowledge to realize that building a house with no eves would be at risk of leaking
eves give a degree of protection to window heads that by their very nature are difficult to protect
We do not live in a Mediterranean climate and the traditional designing of kiwi houses has evolved for a reason
if you have ever been involved in the renovation of old houses you are also aware of the value in boric treated timber
insurance companies are market driven if we force them to set their insurance rates by risk
Ie state sponsored scientific evaluation of differing risk published with no other input
we have a market driven system with minimal cost to government that is quick to acknowledge increases in information and changes in the market cheaper than the massive compliance cost and regulatory frame work that bureaucracy entails
And also far more flexible as to the regional variance’s and differing cultural needs in housing
May 10th, 2012 at 12:46 am
But, does the planet have enough water for a new lake….this is cool….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2141321/Waterworld-Ball-dust-like–water-Earth-fit-860-mile-wide-bubble.html
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 6:44 am
This is a fairly silly idea. One of the most damaging aspects of the earthquakes (to property) was liquefaction induced lateral spreading. The red zoning of properties is mainly due to lateral spreading. Lateral spreading requires a “free face” to occur. Most of the lateral spreading occurred along the Avon as the river banks are such a free face. So, digging a lake will create a lateral spreading risk around it’s perimeter.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 7:46 am
On reflection, after what happened to Canterbury other large non alpine lake (Ellesmere) I think any lake will soon stink of pollution. So I’ve gone off the lake idea. Bob and Gerry can go and jump into Lake Ellesmere (and should be joined by the last 5 ministers of conservation)
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 9:15 am
Mikenmild
If Ngai tahu owned the lake then who would own the water ?
Like Taupo – the maori own the lakebed but not the water, but they want “MONEY” for storing the water.
Effing Stupid.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 1:33 pm
RRM: ” it wasn’t suddenly imposed on us complete fully formed in all its infernal treachery by the Devil Incarnate himself”
No, it has grown inexorably as the self-serving Wellington bureaucracy extended its powers and controls.
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 1:37 pm
Coincidentally, this is what has also been proposed for Te Kuiti. Turn the town into a huge lake.
As I said, there’s nothing original in politics
Vote:May 10th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
The Anglican Bishop of Christchurch Victoria Matthews has already suggested a similar idea that incorporated a water feature and that was to install an artificial beach on the site of the soon to be demolished Christchurch Cathedral. The idea was not well received by the citizens of Christchurch:
Vote:http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch-earthquake-2011/6509697/Lifes-no-beach-in-Cathedral-Square
May 10th, 2012 at 3:55 pm
It’s just fantasy – half of the christchurch CBD is still standing, and demolishing perfectly good buildings makes no sense at all.
Vote:May 12th, 2012 at 12:58 pm
It’s an awesome idea. Thinking outside of the box. Let’s not be the boring conservative city we are known for.
Vote: