Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel was born and raised in the city she now represents. But he has a hard time describing how it has changed since the earthquake.
“I don’t know if it’s something after the disaster,” Dalziel says. “But for me, sometimes it’s hard to remember what was there before.”
Many Christchurch residents say the same thing. His home has undergone a huge transformation in the last ten years after a 6.3-magnitude earthquake killed 185 people, altered tens of thousands of lives and reduced 80% of the city center to rubble.
Today, the streets of Christchurch are bustling, after a period of sustained construction: first, commercial development of office buildings with glass facades and high-end commercial space, and then civic and cultural buildings, which were restored or replace.
Christchurch Basilica, Barbadoes Street
Although reconstruction is underway, traces of the destruction (broken broken buildings and expanses of sports-sized land) that are more prone to tourists than locals, who know how far the city has come.
“Every now and then I see the city through the eyes of people visiting it for the first time in a long time and I hear their excitement about … what it’s becoming,” Dalziel says.
Latimer Square, Christchurch
After ten years, Christchurch is no longer, in the first place, a city damaged by the earthquake, but progress to this point has been slow and hard earned. In 2013, the cost of the recovery stood at $ 40 billion; it was probably more.
Asked about the missed opportunities for reconstruction, Dalziel laughed. “How long do you have?”
Highlighting the advantage of the retrospective, Dalizel, who was elected in October 2013, almost three years after the earthquake, says the agencies could have been better aligned.
For example, the electronics and telecommunications companies adopted different methods to repair the damaged infrastructure of the town hall, which means that the same roads were excavated many times.
Lincoln Road, Addington, Christchurch
These lessons from Christchurch’s strongest infrastructure reconstruction team (SCIRT) have been made available to the public for the benefit of other cities facing post-disaster reconstruction, according to Dalziel.
But the ultimate problem of reconstruction was the relationship between local government and national government.
On May 1, 2011, the national government established the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (WAX), a public service bureaucracy with broad powers to direct its response to recovery, including local authorities.
The approach adopted by Cera provoked widespread discontent, leaving both the council and the residents on the sidelines.
Dalziel suggests that the central government and the council could have created an independent entity to operate together, appointing councilors who would be responsible for it.
Gloucester Street
Gloucester Street
In April 2012, a unit within Cera took responsibility for the reconstruction of the central city, making its own version of the council’s draft recovery plan, which became known as the “plan”.
It was based on dedicated venues, such as for innovation, health, and the performing arts; and “anchoring projects” that were expected to encourage organic investment. (One, for a “sustainable people,” was finally abandoned last week.)
But local knowledge of the council’s public consultation was lost, Dalziel says. The plan “was not of the city; he was a creature of government. ” Wax dissolved in 2016.
Meanwhile, the council addressed the work of a new central library, Tūranga, with great attention to community engagement: the suggestion of a resident of a “Harry Potter staircase” was reflected in the finished building, which opened in October 2018.
Central library
It is widely considered one of the triumphs of reconstruction, frequented by a large cross-section of the population of Christchurch, often indicative of a genuine focus on diversity and inclusion in the design process.
This kind of civic mentality seemed absent in the first buildings that emerged after the earthquake, spurred on by private investment. For a time, the center of Christchurch was dominated by low-rise commercial developments made of glass and steel, such as the Deloitte and PWC buildings.
Hundreds of heritage buildings were lost, either due to the earthquake or demolition.
The town hall and the Isaac Theater Royal of the Edwardian era have been restored and reopened; but demolition of Christchurch Basilica, which first opened in 1905, began only in December. (Construction of its replacement has been delayed by rare seagulls nesting on the shores of Asia) Place of Armagh St.)
Armagh St.
PricewaterhouseCoopers Center, Armagh Street
The city’s cultural renewal was led by grassroots groups such as Greening the Rubble, Gap Filler and Agropolis, who created small, often temporary, projects of “soft infrastructure” to revitalize the city at the street and human level.
The New York Times highlighted a community-run community dance floor, gardens on vacant lots and other displays of the “wit of its resilient residents” in naming Christchurch the second best place to travel in 2014. It was re-designated last year.
Gap Filler is now a partner in a major residential project, led by Fletcher Living, that covers six blocks in the city center.
Manchester St.
Manchester St.
The development of One Central is critical to the project proposal to increase the residential population of downtown Christchurch, but sales began slowly, prompting concern that construction may exceed demand.
He talks about the evolving challenge of reconstruction. The center of Christchurch is not recognized from the disaster area that occurred after the earthquake and changed significantly from its shape even five years ago. And the city that 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 … Of every disaster, of any crisis, there is always opportunity: Christchurch has every opportunity ahead of it, and people you can see it now. “
For her, the new Christchurch is most evident on the banks of the River Avon: home to Riverside’s new covered market, an independent theater, and a new hospitality development.
“If I spend a summer night here, it’s just full of people: in bars and restaurants, family groups, walking and cycling: it has that feeling of happiness … You’d never want to go back to your way was” .