Funding boost for stadium

The Christchurch City Council is proposing to spend the bulk of a

$300 million government fund on a new stadium.

One of Labour’s pre-election promises was a $300m fund for Christchurch, to be spent as the city decided. They upheld their commitment in this year’s budget.

On Thursday, the council will consider a recommendation to divide the fund as follows:

❚ $220m for funding a stadium.

❚ $40m for road and transport projects, largely aimed at repairing earthquake damage.

❚ $40m, less possible administration costs, as a seed fund to speed up development of the Avon River Red Zone’s green spine.

If the council votes to proceed, business cases will have to be developed and approved for each option before the Government hands over the money. The fund was always intended for projects such as the stadium, red zone and infrastructure repairs.

If $220m is allocated to the stadium, it brings the funds available for the project up to $473m – with the extra $253m to come from council coffers. The council money was bought forward to

2020/21 to 2023/4 in this year’s long-term plan. The Government and council are working on a business case for the stadium, which is hoped to be largely completed by the end of the year. The building is planned for a block of land bounded by Madras, Barbadoes, Hereford and Tuam streets.

Council strategy and transformation general manager Dr Brendan Anstiss said the funding ‘‘presents an opportunity to accelerate work that is critical to the regeneration of our city, and give much needed certainty that these projects will happen now.’’

He said the council ‘‘heard loud and clear that people wanted certainty around having a stadium in the city’’.

Feasibility studies said the additional $220m ‘‘should provide the necessary funding for a 30,000-seat covered stadium’’, though the business case would need to confirm this, Anstiss said.

Central City Business Association chairman Brendan Chase said people needed a reason to visit the central city and events were one of the best reasons you could provide them, so getting a stadium would have a ‘‘profound effect’’.

‘‘We’ve certainly been missing that on a national and international scale, so if this fasttracks us to a high-quality stadium, I think that’s got to be a positive thing for the central city.’’ Of the money for transport,

$25m would go towards roads worst affected by the quakes, with

$5m each to Richmond, New

‘‘If this fast-tracks us to a high-quality stadium, I think that’s got to be a positive thing for the central city.’’

Central City Business Association chair Brendan Chase

Brighton, Woolston, Linwood/ Woolston, Spreydon and Riccarton. Another $5m would be for safety improvement projects.

A further $5m would go towards accelerating bus priority work on either a key route or across the central city in general, while the last $5m would be for resealing of some roads previously within the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (SCIRT) rebuild programme which repaired the city’s wrecked infrastructure in the years after the quakes.

The road and transport funding would be requested over four years from 2019/20 to

2022/23. It’s a tiny drop in the big bucket that is the council’s planned $1 billion of roading investment in more than 400 transport projects over the next decade. It’s estimated more than

20 years of work remains to get the roads to compare with other New Zealand cities.

The $40m red zone money would be earmarked for the green spine in the Avon River Red Zone, and go towards unfunded projects such as parks and reserves, ecological spaces and public amenities. It would be requested over four years from 2019/20 to 2022/23.

The green spine proposal would see 11 kilometres of the Avon River encased by a 150m wide green zone on each side, to include parks, playgrounds, walking paths, nature trails and cycle ways. Its total cost of development is estimated at about $800m, to be spread over 30 years.

The council has about $141m set aside for the red zone over the next 10 years, to go towards building a major cycleway, replacing the Pages Rd bridge, and starting work on water management such as stop banks. Another $270m is needed for water works after 2028.