Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel was born and raised in the city she now represents. But she finds it difficult to describe how it has changed since the earthquake.
“I don’t know if it’s a thing after the disaster,” Dalziel said. “But for me it’s sometimes hard to remember what was there before.”
Many Christchurch residents say the same. Their home has undergone enormous transformation over the past ten years after 185 earthquakes killed 185 people, disrupted tens of thousands of lives and left 80% of the city center in ruins.
Today, the streets of Christchurch are busy, after a period of sustained construction: first, commercial development of glass-fronted office blocks and high-end retail space – and then civic and cultural buildings, which have either been restored or replaced.
Christchurch Basilica, Barbados Street
Although the reconstruction is underway, traces of the destruction – fenced-in broken-down buildings and sports field-sized pieces of land for development – will be noticed by tourists more than residents, who know how far the city has come.
“Every now and then I see the city through the eyes of people visiting here for the first time in a long time, and hear their excitement about … what it’s becoming,” says Dalziel.
Latimer Square, Christchurch
After ten years, Christchurch is no longer primarily an earthquake-damaged city – but progress up to this point has been slowly and hard won. In 2013, the cost of the repair amounted to $ 40 billion; it was probably more.
Asked about the missed opportunities of the rebuild, Dalziel laughs. “How long have you been?”
Dalizel, who was elected almost three years after the October 2013 earthquake, stressed the benefit of afterthought and said agencies could be better aligned.
Individual telecommunications and power companies, for example, have taken different approaches to repairing the council’s damaged infrastructure, which means that the same roads have been dug up many times.
Lincoln Road, Addington, Christchurch
These lessons from the Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (SCIRT) have been made publicly available for the benefit of other cities facing a reconstruction after the disaster, Dalziel said.
But the defining problem of the reconstruction was the relationship between local and national government.
On May 1, 2011, the national government established the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera), a public service bureaucracy with broad powers to guide its response to the recovery – including local authorities.
The approach that Cera followed led to widespread dissatisfaction, while the council as well as the residents were sidelined.
Dalziel suggests that the central government and the council could rather form an independent entity to appoint directors who were responsible to both.
Gloucester Street
Gloucester Street
In April 2012, a unit in Cera took over responsibility for rebuilding the central city and made its own version of the council’s draft recovery plan – which became known as ‘the blueprint’.
It was based on dedicated areas, such as for innovation, health and performing arts; and ‘anchor projects’ that are expected to encourage organic investment. (One, for a ‘sustainable town’, was finally abandoned last week.)
But local knowledge of the council’s public consultation has been lost, Dalziel says. The blueprint “was not from the city; it was a being of the government ”. Cera itself was dissolved in 2016.
Meanwhile, the council has tackled the task of a new central library, Tūranga, with close attention to community involvement: the proposal of one resident of a “Harry Potter staircase” was reflected in the completed building, which opened in October 2018.
Central Library
It is widely regarded as one of the triumphs of reconstruction, regularly visited by a wide cross-section of the Christchurch population – often indicating a sincere attention to diversity and inclusion in the design process.
This kind of civilization was apparently absent in the first buildings that emerged after the earthquake, spurred on by private investment. Christchurch’s downtown has long been dominated by low-rise commercial developments of glass and steel, such as the Deloitte and PWC buildings.
Hundreds of heritage buildings have been lost – either by the earthquake, or the demolition to continue from there.
The Edwardian-era City Hall and the Isaac-Theater Royal were both restored and reopened; but demolition of the Christchurch Basilica, which first opened its doors in 1905, only began in December. (The construction of its replacement has been delayed by rare seagulls lying on land Armagh St yard.)
Armagh St.
PricewaterhouseCoopers Center, Armagh St.
The city’s cultural renewal was led by grassroots groups such as Greening the Rubble, Gap Filler and Agropolis, who set up small, often temporary “soft infrastructure” projects to revitalize the city at street level, and a human one.
A communal dance floor with coins, gardens in vacant lots and other exhibits of the “ingenuity of its hardy residents” was highlighted by the New York Times by naming Christchurch as the second best place to travel in 2014. This is the last time this year has been singled out again.
Gap Filler is now a partner in a major residential project, led by Fletcher Living that spans six blocks downtown.
Manchester St.
Manchester St.
The development of the One Central is central to the plan to increase the residential population in central Christchurch, but sales have started slowly, raising concerns that construction may exceed demand.
This speaks to the evolving challenge of rebuilding. Central Christchurch is unrecognizable from the disaster area it was after the earthquake, and has changed significantly from how it was even five years ago. And the city that is yet to become it is still evolving.
Cathedral
Cathedral
Regardless of what has been built so far, Dalziel says: “We are absolutely the best city for the future … Of every disaster, any crisis, there is always opportunity – Christchurch has all its opportunities before us, and people can see it now. “
For her, the new Christchurch is most evident along the banks of the Avon River: home to the new Riverside indoor market, an indie theater and a new hospitality development.
“When I walk past on a summer evening, it’s just full of people: in the pubs and restaurants, family groups, walking and cycling – it will have this happy feeling … You will never want to go back to the way it was.”