Time to tidy up the mess

From high up, the broad view over central Christchurch is largely one of progress, with cranes on the skyline, scaffolding, building gangs, road works and the ubiquitous road cones. Zoom in closer, however, and you can see the pockets of frantic activity and construction are interrupted by unkempt sites or fenced-off buildings. Some are strewn with rubbish and pockets of weeds while others have been snapped up for vehicle parking by Wilson Parking as a money-making opportunity.

There is still an air of desolation about parts of the city. On a hot nor’west day, visitors could be forgiven for expecting to see tumbleweed rolling down some central Christchurch streets.

Residents, developers, investors and visionaries have been working tirelessly for years now to resurrect the earthquake-damaged central business district. Those efforts are paying off in terms of new properties and commercial developments, rising confidence and morale, an increasingly vibrant hospitality sector and a recovery in visitor numbers.

The visible scars from the September 2010 and February 2011 quakes have taken a long time to cover up and to heal. It is for these reasons that business people now feel compelled to speak out about the sites they say are dragging down the city’s image and the rebuild’s momentum. While it is particularly stark in the modernising central city, you need not travel far into the suburbs to find rubble mountains, empty sections and fenced-off buildings.

The Christchurch City Development Forum has asked the city council to form regulations so it can take action where properties are derelict, unsanitary or otherwise an eyesore.

Forum chairman and city councillor Jamie Gough says the council needs methods to encourage owners to toe the line to ensure those sitting on their ‘‘chuffs’’, clutching their insurance payouts but doing nothing, did not drag everyone else down around them.

Pockets of discarded rubble five years out from the earthquakes is not only ‘‘not a good look’’, as Gough says, but is disheartening for those living and working in the city, a deterrent to visitors and damaging to the stillrecovering tourist industry.

Colliers International managing director Hamish Doig says a slowing market for offices may mean some CBD land sits undeveloped for years yet. He thinks that during that time, owners should either turn their land into grass or keep it tidy, and be penalised if they refuse.

Central City Business Association chairman Brendan Chase says the worst eyesores are where empty sites lie next to those which have been newly developed. He likens such sections to ‘‘no man’s land’’ and makes a good point that, just because such sites are empty, there is no excuse for landowners not to keep them tidy.

There certainly needs to be a solution to this problem. Christchurch does not want to become known for such blots on the landscape and to be compared with cities like London, where World War II bomb sites remained vacant for several decades after the war into the 1970s.

A mixture of incentives and penalties is needed to speed up improvements and the city council is the right agency to lead the charge.