Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel was born and raised in the city she now represents. But she finds it hard to describe how it has changed since the earthquake.
“I don’t know if it’s after a disaster”, says Dalziel. “But sometimes it’s hard for me to remember what came before.”
Many Christchurch residents say the same. Their home has undergone a massive transformation in the past 10 years after a 6.3-magnitude earthquake killed 185 people, disrupted tens of thousands of lives and reduced 80% of the city center to rubble.
Today, Christchurch’s streets are bustling, after a period of sustained construction: first commercial development of glass-fronted office buildings and high-end retail space – then public and cultural buildings, which were either restored or replaced.
Christchurch Basilica, Barbadoes Street
While reconstruction is underway, traces of the destruction – demolished buildings and plots of land the size of sports fields destined for development – are more likely to be noticed by tourists than locals, who know how far the city has come.
“Every now and then I see the city through the eyes of people who have come here for the first time in a long time, and hear their excitement about… what it is becoming,” says Dalziel.
Latimer Square, Christchurch
After 10 years, Christchurch is primarily no longer a city damaged by an earthquake, but so far progress has been slow and cumbersome. In 2013, the cost of the recovery was estimated at $ 40 billion; it was probably more.
When asked about the missed opportunities of the renovation, Dalziel laughs. “How long have you got?”
Dalizel, who was elected in October 2013, almost three years after the earthquake, emphasizes the benefit of hindsight and says the agencies could have been better aligned.
For example, individual telco and energy companies took different approaches from the municipality to repair damaged infrastructure, meaning the same roads were excavated many times.
Lincoln Road, Addington, Christchurch
Those lessons from the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (SCIRT) have been made public for the benefit of other cities being rebuilt after the disaster, Dalziel said.
But the defining problem of reconstruction was the relationship between local and national government.
On May 1, 2011, the national government established the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera), a government agency with extensive powers to direct its response to the recovery, including over local authorities.
Cera’s approach led to widespread dissatisfaction, with both the municipality and the residents sidelined.
Dalziel suggests that the central government and council could have instead set up an independent entity to operate together, appointing directors accountable to both of them.
Gloucester Street
Gloucester Street
In April 2012, a unit within Cera took over responsibility for rebuilding the central city and created its own version of the municipality’s draft recovery plan – what became known as “the blueprint”.
It was based on specialty areas, such as for innovation, health and the performing arts; and “anchor projects” that, it was hoped, would encourage organic investment. (One, for a ‘sustainable village,’ was eventually abandoned last week.)
But local knowledge of the council’s public consultation was lost, Dalziel said. The blueprint “was out of town; it was a creature of the government ”. Cera itself was disbanded in 2016.
In the meantime, the council approached the task of a new central library, Tūranga, with detailed attention to community involvement: a resident’s suggestion of a “Harry Potter staircase” was reflected in the completed building, which opened in October 2018.
Central library
It is widely regarded as one of the triumphs of the rebuilding, attended by a wide cross-section of the Christchurch population – often indicative of genuine attention to diversity and inclusion in the design process.
That kind of civic spirit seemed absent from the first buildings to emerge after the earthquake, boosted by private investment. For a time, Christchurch’s inner city was dominated by low-rise commercial developments of glass and steel, such as the Deloitte and PWC buildings.
Hundreds of monumental buildings were lost – either from the earthquake or from the demolition to move away from it.
The town hall and the Edwardian-era Isaac Theater Royal have both been restored and reopened; but demolished Christchurch Basilica, which first opened its doors in 1905, did not begin until December. (Construction of its replacement has been delayed due to rare seagulls that nest on the Armagh St site.)
Armagh St.
PricewaterhouseCoopers Center, Armagh St
The city’s cultural renewal was led by grassroots groups such as Greening the Rubble, Gap Filler, and Agropolis, who set up small, often temporary ‘soft infrastructure’ projects to revitalize the city at street level, and a human one.
A coin-operated community dance floor, wasteland gardens and other displays of the “ingenuity of the hardened inhabitants” was highlighted by the New York Times by naming Christchurch the second best place to travel in 2014. year.
Gap Filler is now a partner in a large housing project led by Fletcher Living that spans six blocks in the downtown area.
Manchester St.
Manchester St.
The One Central development is central to the blueprint’s plan to increase the residential population of central Christchurch, but sales were slow to pick up, raising concerns that construction could outpace demand.
It talks about the evolving challenge of reconstruction. The center of Christchurch is unrecognizable by the disaster area where it was after the earthquake, and has changed significantly from how it was even five years ago. And the city it has yet to become is still emerging.
cathedral
cathedral
Regardless of what has been built so far, Dalziel says, “We are absolutely the best city for the future … From every disaster, every crisis, there are always opportunities – Christchurch has all its opportunities ahead of us, and people can now see it. “
For her, the new Christchurch is most evident along the banks of the River Avon: home to the new covered market Riverside, an indie theater and a hip new hangout.
“When I walk by on a summer night, it’s just filled with people: in the bars and restaurants, family groups, walking and cycling – it has a wonderful feeling … You would never want to go back to the way it was.”