Access issues put brake on city progress

A prominent developer says Christchurch is becoming the ‘‘inaccessible’’ city.

Antony Gough, who is behind The Terrace development on Oxford Tce, took aim at the new 30 kilometre an hour speed limit, the lack of car parking, convention centre delays – even cycle lanes – in the central city at a rebuild conference on Friday.

He said they all put potential developers off.

‘‘Our ‘accessible city’ is actually a joke, because actually, it’s inaccessible. You slow the traffic down, you take car parks away and you put cycle lanes everywhere. That is not accessible, it’s inaccessible and it’s a real worry for us.’’

An Accessible City was the name of the transport chapter developed by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera) for the Christchurch Central Recovery Plan. It included a 30kmh inner city speed zone.

Gough had no issue with the lower speed limit on ‘‘inner core streets’’, but said the one-way streets should be exempt.

‘‘That’s critical that they are 50kmh – and it’s a subject we will need to go back on. It was interesting it was brought in under the Cera legislation, not council, so they bypassed the normal consultation,’’ Gough said.

The Christchurch City Council had ‘‘finally’’ got car parks down, he said, but it was yet to make a decision publicly about what would replace the Lichfield St car parking building.

‘‘You’ve got an area like what I call west of the Avon River – there are all these office buildings, [but] there’s no car parking yet,’’ Gough said.

Without a convention centre, Christchurch could also kiss new hotels goodbye, he said. The centre was ‘‘absolutely critical’’ to development. Hotels needed the centre to bring winter trade.

‘‘That’s why we’re not getting any new hotel builds, other than this Rydges we’re standing in at the moment.

‘‘There’s lot’s of people who are interested, but they said ‘we’ve got to have a convention centre’, and as you can see here [at Rydges] we’re packed out.’’

Cera acting chief executive John Ombler in February cast doubt over whether the convention centre would be built.

Labour’s Canterbury spokeswoman Megan Woods grilled Ombler about the inaction over the convention centre precinct.

‘‘Our ‘accessible city’ is actually a joke, because actually, it’s inaccessible.’’ Antony Gough

When asked if the convention centre would proceed, Ombler said it was ‘‘too early’’ to say.

Gough rubbished uncertainty around the convention centre going ahead, but said work needed to start as soon as possible. ‘‘It is going to happen. We actually need to put a stake in the ground and say ‘OK, we’ll build this’.’’

The convention centre precinct, which would span two prime city blocks from Cathedral Square to Victoria Square, was announced as an anchor project in 2012.

It was supposed to be completed in early 2017, but has been pushed out to 2018. At least $284 million of taxpayers money has been allocated to it.

Okataro chairman Ross Butler said one of the government-owned company’s roles would be to review Christchurch’s anchor projects, to make sure each was ‘‘appropriate’’.

The next year would include investments of Crown land into ‘‘other larger commercial projects’’.

Butler was aware of research finding 94 per cent people surveyed believed Christchurch needed a modern outdoor events facility, but said there was no business case for a stadium.

‘‘I would’ve thought the parties should be getting together pretty quickly, and I would put my hand up for Otakaro to be a part of that, to get a substantive business case in place to determine the needs and the capacity of the community to pay for it.

Butler said he had not seen any sign of ‘‘a dollar’’ coming from either the Canterbury or New Zealand rugby unions.