Stubborn swimming pool ruins
Should the city council do more to clean up derelict buildings and deal with vacant sites? Charlie Gates reports on a city ‘‘ruled by rubble’’.
They are known as ‘‘Philip Carter’s swimming pools’’. The flooded concrete basements of two partially demolished high rise buildings in central Christchurch are both dramatic ruins in the post-quake cityscape.
One of the ‘‘swimming pools’’ – a wry nickname coined by local developers – is the ruined nub of the former PWC tower in Armagh St, while the other is the basement of the former Holiday Inn building on the corner of Cashel and High streets, which was flooded until recently and is now used as a car park.
They are both partly owned by investor and developer Philip Carter, who in 2016 was estimated by the National Business Review to be worth about $200 million.
He said plans were in place for the two sites but would not elaborate further.
The pair of stubborn ruins are emblematic of a city centre still blighted by derelict buildings and empty sites nearly nine years since the February 2011 Canterbury earthquakes. Travel writer Brook Sabin sparked debate about the problem last week when he wrote that the city had a ‘‘sense of decay’’ and that rubble still ruled the landscape.
He described the ruins of the Christ Church Cathedral, which will be restored from next year as part of a collective effort from Anglicans, heritage campaigners, council and central government, as a ‘‘monument to paralysis’’.
‘‘The emotion is still the same as it has been for the past eight years: sadness,’’ he wrote.
‘‘Surely, there would be some urgency to at least get rid of the eyesores that blot the landscape.
‘‘What if this happened in Singapore, or London today?
‘‘Do you think the heart of the central city would be a blight on the landscape 8.5 years on?’’ the Instagram influencer asked sadly.
It is worth nothing that there are still empty sites in London
where buildings were destroyed in the Blitz nearly 80 years ago.
But, the eyesores and empty sites in Christchurch remain a difficult problem. There are still about 50 hectares of vacant commercial and residential land in the Four Avenues, figures from the Christchurch City Council show.
That is an area more than twice the size of the Botanic Gardens.
And that vacant space has not shrunk dramatically over the past five years. In 2014, there were
65.9 hectares of vacant land, compared with 62.7ha in 2017 and
52.8ha in 2018.
In May 2017, the council identified 30 derelict buildings, quickly dubbed the Dirty 30, which were considered barriers to regeneration of the city centre.
About 14 more sites were added later. There are currently
11 derelict or partially demolished buildings still on the list that are either still subject to insurance disputes or where the owner’s intentions are yet to be confirmed.
Two of those
11 properties are Carter’s swimming pools. They are joined by the halfdemolished brick ruins of the former Hunters & Collectors building in High St; two graffiti-strewn neighbouring buildings in Hereford St; and a derelict motel in Gloucester St.
The council has outlined powers it is prepared to use in order to resolve these ‘‘barrier sites’’, with the threat extending to using special powers in the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Act to ‘‘undertake works, direct owners and acquire land’’.
Council urban regeneration principal adviser John Meeker said the council was considering using powers in the Building Act to compel owners of two sites on the barrier list to undertake work.
‘‘The approach so far has been about promoting dialogue and being proactive with owners.
‘‘But there are a couple of sites where we have tried and tried and tried again but that has not yielded an outcome. We are going to require property owners to do some works ... What happens next is dictated by the response of the landowner.’’ Meeker would not name the two sites or detail the work to be undertaken.
Carter was unable to speak on the phone about his ‘‘swimming pool’’ sites but responded with a written statement through a communications agency. He said his company, Carter Group, was ‘‘committed to the rejuvenation of Christchurch’s CBD’’.
‘‘We have plans in place for the two sites and once they are finalised, we will be very happy to share the news. Once plans are certain on those sites, the basements will be removed.’’
One local demolition contractor estimated it would take about six weeks and cost about $80,000 to $120,000 to remove the flooded foundations on one site.
Carter pointed to his investment in city centre regeneration projects. ‘‘The Carter Group has been very busy since the earthquakes, redeveloping land that had damaged buildings on it.
‘‘The $140 million Crossing redevelopment, which opened in September 2017, was the culmination of six years’ hard work. The first purpose-built preschool in the CBD since the Christchurch earthquakes will open its doors at The Crossing in a month.
‘‘We also recently tenanted another central city site to Kathmandu, who opened a flagship store on the corner of Colombo and Cashel streets last week.’’
Another building on the barrier site list is a former camera shop in Armagh St next to the Crowne Plaza hotel. The building is often tagged, has provided a home for squatters, and the former shop doorway recently became a shelter for homeless people until a wooden fence was erected across the front by the hotel. John Greenwood, a trustee of the family trust that owns the site, said the quakedamaged building was caught up in an insurance dispute.
‘‘It is standard stuff [insurance companies] do with commercial and residential owners. They drag their feet and make you low-ball offers. That is a lot of the problem.
‘‘I suppose we should keep it tidy. The problem is they just come back and tag it again.’’
Central City Business Association (CCBA) chair Brendan Chase has urged the council to take more action against derelict building owners. The CCBA represents city centre business and property owners.
‘‘There must come a point in time where they draw a line in the sand and say you can’t intrude on the public realm any longer.
‘‘It is having an adverse effect on the city centre as a whole.
‘‘The point where that line would be drawn is not that far away,’’ Chase said.
‘‘In other places where sites are left dilapidated or in a poor state, their rates are increased to spur owners into action,’’ Chase said.
‘‘Leaving [derelict sites] in their current state is not in the interests of city centre investment.’’
Christchurch mayoral candidate John Minto also wants greater intervention.
‘‘We should increase rates on undeveloped land in the inner city,’’ he said.
‘‘If you ramp up the rates, it requires developers to develop the land or sell it. You increase the rates to a point where it becomes uneconomical for a developer to do nothing,’’ Minto said.
Meeker said the vacant land figures were distorted by large empty sites like the largely government-owned stadium site in Madras St and the old Christchurch Women’s Hospital in Colombo St owned by the Canterbury District Health Board.
‘‘There are sites being picked off here and there but until those big chunks are developed, it will look quite static.’’
But he said some vacant sites could remain for many years.
‘‘We have to acknowledge the fact that demand ... is not there.
‘‘There may not be for 20 years or so. There is a latent pool of supply there.’’
Meeker said the council was encouraging medium term uses on sites that had no immediate development plans.
Gap Filler co-founder Ryan Reynolds saw no need to force people to develop their sites.
‘‘There is no point developing a site if there is no use for it. We have all read the figures that there is more hospitality in the city than there was before the quakes, and retail and office space. If someone builds something new, they won’t necessarily let it out quickly.
‘‘Who am I to say they should develop it more quickly?’’
And has he got any ideas for Carter’s swimming pool sites?
‘‘They would be great sites for an opera or something.
‘‘That is what I think every time I walk past.’’