Green spine completion ‘within five to 10 years’

An 11-kilometre section of the Christchurch red zone should be redeveloped within the next five to 10 years, Mayor Lianne Dalziel says.

Regenerate Christchurch has drafted a long-awaited, and overdue, shortlist of options for the land. Preferred options include space for adaptable housing, sustainable agriculture, private and non-profit investment and ‘‘ecological, food, cultural and recreation experiences’’.

Also included is an 11km ‘‘green spine’’ of walkways, biking tracks and wetlands winding from the city to New Brighton. It will be up to 150 metres wide on each side of the Avon River.

Yesterday, Dalziel said it was ‘‘absolutely’’ reasonable to say the green spine would be completed in the next five to 10 years.

Asked if the work could be done in less than five years, Dalziel said: ‘‘I would like to think so.’’

Regenerate Christchurch is responsible for developing a regeneration plan for the Avon River red zone.

Last week, chairwoman Sue Sheldon said implementation of the plan was ‘‘likely to be the beginning of a 30-year intergenerational programme of work’’.

However, Dalziel said yesterday the city could ‘‘get on with’’ the green spine ‘‘straight away’’.

‘‘The green spine is now a given,’’ she said.

Work to create it would begin as soon as the regeneration plan was signed off by Greater Christchurch Regeneration Minister Megan Woods, Dalziel said.

The spine would be paid for ‘‘from a variety of sources’’.

‘‘The council’s got a significant amount on budget already over the next 10 years,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s bringing it forward so that we take the money that’s in the budget for the

"The green spine is now a given." Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel

stopbanks. It’s in the budget for the major cycleway routes. It’s in the budget for various other elements of wetlands and things like that.

‘‘We can get that money brought forward and we can do that work.’’

Regenerate Christchurch will soon announce a shortlist of options for the red zone in a muchdelayed public exhibit. However, it remains unclear how options other than the green spine will be funded.

‘‘There’s this view that there’s all this money on various budgets to take things forward and that isn’t the case for the whole of the area and it never has been,’’ Dalziel said.

Woods said the red zone was one of three areas money from a $300 million fund for Christchurch could be spent on.

The fund was pledged by Labour before last year’s general election. Woods had requested the money be made available in the next Government budget.

Yesterday, she also announced temporary projects in the residential red zone would be able to run for up to five years, up from the current two-year restriction.

Sheldon said the final red zone plan was likely to be ready some time in the last quarter of this year.

‘‘It’s a very large area of land and it just won’t be possible for that to be filled up within the next five years,’’ she said.

‘‘We think it’s a generational project and so we’ve put a 30-year timeframe on it to allow people to think you don’t have to rush in and do everything now, but pieces will start and other pieces of work will develop over time.

‘‘The green spine timing is much closer.’’