Time to stop the closeminded city thinking
I assume Ian Smith of Waverley (29.6.18) was referring to me and Damien Van Brandenburg when he dismissed the Steamer Basin Project as ‘‘pure ostentatious vanity and nothing more.’’
The irony is that his letter appeared on the same day the ODT carried a frontpage article on the visit of two young Tauranga people who won a competition to Dunedin because of its forward thinking, its respect for its past and its bold vision for the future.
It came as a result of an invitation I received to speak in Tauranga about the Steamer Basin project and how it was that we were able to get a city council, regional council, port authority, university and iwi to line up behind a project of this scale and boldness, when they couldn’t get their council to approve a museum.
I have lived for more than 30 years in Dunedin. Mr Smith of Waverley has been a constant reminder of the closedminded thinking that has led to Dunedin being replaced by Tauranga as one of New Zealand’s major cities.
His description of our waterfront as being ‘‘exposed to the bitterly cold wind which blows down the harbour at most times’’ is the sort of comment we hear from people up north who argue they could never live in Dunedin.
It is not what one would expect to hear from someone who professes to love the city he has chosen to live in. It is also not a view shared by Damien who has spent the past eight years working on his remarkable Chinese Marisfrolg project from a shed on Steamer Basin.
Damien and his team have experienced all of the marvels of that spectacular piece of our waterfront and his vision, far from being an ‘‘ostentatious vanity’’, is a celebration of this wonderful city and what it has to offer to those of us who have chosen to call it home.
For years now I have refrained from responding to the negativity of people like Mr Smith — but enough is enough.
Your contributions remain a mystery to me, Mr Smith, and I look forward to reading about them in your next letter to the editor. Ian Taylor
Dunedin
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