Progress on city’s ‘dirty 30’ buildings

The number of buildings on the Christchurch City Council’s ‘‘dirty 30’’ list is falling as the council signals plans to widen its focus into the suburbs.

In May, the council put pressure on central-city property owners to fix up their buildings deemed to be in a poor state of repair. It publicly released a list of more than 30 such buildings it believed were holding back the rebuild.

Six months later, eight buildings have been removed from the list after being repaired or demolished and work is expected to begin on another nine within the next six to 12 months.

While 27 properties remain on the list, only nine are listed as problematic with no clear future. Four of those are awaiting a resolution on insurance, including the Old Post Office building in Cathedral Square, the former Ace Video building in High St and the former Teachers College building in Peterborough St.

Owners of another nine ‘‘barrier sites’’ have plans for their properties but the work is dependent on further investigations, including the Christ Church Cathedral, which is expected to take many years to restore.

Buildings removed from the list include Spagalimis on Victoria St, the Public Trust Office on Oxford Tce, Lincoln House on Lichfield St and five properties on High St.

Two council-owned heritage buildings – the remains of the Odeon Theatre on Tuam St and the Our City O-Tautahi building on the corner of Worcester Blvd and Oxford Tce – remain listed. Progress on the Our City building is dependent on funding being allocated as part of the council’s 10-year budget, the Long Term Plan.

In a report to be discussed at the council’s Strategic Capability Committee meeting on Wednesday, council staff said building inspectors, subject to workload, would begin compiling a catalogue of commercial sites in a poor state of repair outside the central city.

Inspectors would look for privately owned prominent unoccupied buildings fronting the street, those where the footpath or road was cordoned off and sites that had partly demolished buildings.

The Christchurch City Development Forum, a group comprising city councillors and representatives of the business community, had requested the council include residential properties on the list, because investors were not committing to new developments due to unkempt nearby residential properties.

The report said the existing programme was successfully helping many building owners remediate their sites.

‘‘Credit for progress must be attributed to those responsible building owners.’’

The council had adopted a four-stage approach in dealing with owners, including talking with them and assisting them with any issues or problems.

A fourth stage, which included taking enforcement action, had not yet been used.