### ODT Online Tue, 23 Aug 2011
Injunction snuffs out stadium traffic lights
By Matthew Haggart
A High Court injunction obtained by an Anzac Ave landowner will not allow the Dunedin City Council to operate traffic lights at the Frederick St intersection with State Highway 88 near Forsyth Barr Stadium.
The directors of two companies, which are listed as ratepayers on Anzac Ave, sharing an access opposite the Frederick St intersection, Hall Bros Transport and A.J. Allen Ltd, declined to comment about the traffic lights. Council transportation operations programme engineer Mike Harrison said the lights were unlikely to be operational until after the four Rugby World Cup games at the stadium.
Related posts:
27.8.09 $294.8m investment for Otago region
2.9.09 SH88 realignment past stadium
20.11.09 Interesting. SH88 realignment.
24.2.10 SH88 realignment: Are ratepayers buying the land twice?
31.3.2010 SH88 realignment
21.4.2010 SH88 realignment – update
29.5.10 Stadium site purchases
7.7.10 Goodbye to great store buildings in Parry St
21.7.10 SH88 realignment – update
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
See related comments from other threads:
Anonymous
July 29, 2011 at 9:18 pm
Q: Is the DCC currently engaged in any litigation at the level of the High Court?
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Russell Garbutt
July 29, 2011 at 10:10 pm
Do you know that they are – do tell?
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Anonymous
July 30, 2011 at 5:14 pm
@Russell, I believe that there is one action that has been appealed to the High Court. Be a good OIA enquiry to confirm what legal proceedings the DCC has underway currently.
On a related matter, anyone else notice that the main contractor for the SH88 realignment went bust shortly before completion owing $11 million? And how many local subcontractors didn’t get paid? Can we all say “due diligence”? My feeling is that it won’t be the stadium that will cause the major crisis; SH88 will be the trigger.
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Elizabeth
July 30, 2011 at 10:04 pm
10.7.10 ODT Online Minister inspects realignment
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Elizabeth
August 1, 2011 at 10:55 pm
On 29 July, Anonymous asked ‘Is the DCC currently engaged in any litigation at the level of the High Court?’
A little birdie hints that it was ‘the Halls in the High Court saying the CST promised to buy their land, then said it wouldn’t, then didn’t provide an access way into their yard’. No-one on Council seems to know about this.
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Anonymous
August 23, 2011 at 7:22 am
Injunction explained: http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/174640/lights-subject-high-court-injunction
The little bird explains that this is self-inflicted and a direct consequence of the SH88 property acquisitions. There is likely to be a sequel.
### ODT Online on Tue, 23/08/2011 – 12:42pm.
Comment by farsighted on More than meets the eye
This intersection was originally planned as the massive gyratory in the sky. Instead, the realignment was realigned late on in the piece. Causing the demolition of a building that was of heritage value and was originally planned to stay. There are more curves in the realigned road than the original. An explanation of all of the factors of how this situation arose will shed a great deal of light on exactly who should be targetted for the boycott. And it isn’t the landowners. DCC and Transit NZ need to front up with the details of who land was purchased from, on what timeframe and the outcome of the negotiations. Then we can all see what happened. Of course, they won’t do that.
### ODT Online Sat, 10 Sep 2011
Red light for idle intersection signals
By David Loughrey
A new set of Dunedin traffic lights, yet to blink into action due to a High Court injunction, will remain constrained from directing traffic as negotiations on the issue continue. A High Court injunction obtained by an Anzac Ave landowner, Doug Hall, has stopped the Dunedin City Council from commissioning traffic lights at the Frederick St intersection with Anzac Ave and State Highway 88, near the Otago Stadium.
Read more
### ODT Online Fri, 23 Dec 2011
Dispute keeps traffic lights off
By David Loughrey
A set of traffic lights in Anzac Ave, in Dunedin, will not join the Christmas light shows, with a dispute between the Dunedin City Council and a local businessman ensuring they stay switched off. And the lights would stay that way into the new year, council city environment manager Tony Avery said, meaning they will have stayed shrouded in plastic covers for about six months. In August, Mr Avery confirmed a High Court injunction had been obtained by Anzac Ave landowner Doug Hall, stopping the council from commissioning the lights at the Frederick St intersection with Anzac Ave and State Highway 88.
Read more
Another delightful stadium story filled with the usual, generated bad will that has costly consequences. It goes on…..and on…. into an indefinite future. A lot more newsprint to go. Look on the bright side. Should help City Forests secure its future.
Trust it to be the one property that John Farry hadn’t bought up in advance. What rotten luck was that.
A good lesson in project management there: Never ever try and screw a contractor. You just never know when it’s going to come back and bite you.
The ‘land stand off’ between Hall Bros. and council is quite simple. The DCC wanted the land to make way for the re-alignment of SH88. It offered a price which was a calculated insult to the owner. The owner countered saying that it saw no reason why it should sell at a price per square metre one cent less than paid to other vendors for both the highway and the stadium. The DCC tried the bully tactic and it has backfired, ‘big time’. It is now a case of you want it, I have it, and you know the price. Mr Avery is simply doing the bureaucratic thing and going through the court system (at ratepayers’ expense) and stands to lose. A classic case of the small man tilting at the ‘dumb bums’.
Doug Hall is not the man to bully. He’s the one who does it, not the one who crumples at a threat from a desk jockey. What’s wrong with his land, that it is valued so low? Could it be that he’s not wearing the right colours, the McMafia Tartan?
And by the way Calvin there’s nothing “small man” about Doug Hall. He’s got energy and gumption aplenty, and more balls than a billiard saloon. Not the easiest character to deal with, famous locally for leaky fences and not showing concern for neighbours who end up grazing his stock, on the other hand when he thinks something needs doing he bloody does it e.g. urgent work on erosion out St Kilda way while the DCC commissioned more reports or wrung their hands or something, and wore worried looks on their dials. An interesting mixture of excellent/bastard.
Question remains whether Doug is any better than the others by holding out for the same amount as the other vendors. I can partially understand the twisted logic, but it does him no credit to be lumped in with the others. Ultimately he will be thinking what’s best for him. Not us.
Why should Doug Hall be a martyr? The price was set when the stadium land was bought after huge technicolour signals that the stadium MUST be there, no other option could be considered e.g. refurbishing Carisbrook, which said, “Up to you, mates – name your price.” Why should he be the one and only to whom “this is the correct price, now sell it to us for that amount” applies?
As for thinking what’s best for him – if he doesn’t who will? Not the council, that’s for sure. It hasn’t given a flying farnarkle about what’s good for any of the rest of us, rugger-heads and tartan mafia excepted.
Don’t anyone worry about Doug Hall, he’s a better friend than enemy. The DCC are just trying to demonstrate how they look after the interests of the public by trying to make an ogre out of one man. They might just have picked the wrong one.
If placed in the same position by DCC I’d be doing exactly the same as Doug Hall. He’s no quitter. He’s seen DCC inside and out for many years. Good on him.
### ODT Online Fri, 10 Feb 2012
Intersection dispute angers businesses
By Bruce Munro
Businesses on the “wrong side of the tracks” are frustrated an ongoing dispute between Dunedin City Council and landowner Doug Hall has kept a portion of the Anzac Ave-Ward St overbridge closed for more than six months. It is more than two months before the next scheduled High Court appearance for the city council and Mr Hall over a dispute which has kept traffic lights at the intersection of Frederick St and Anzac Ave turned off and the northwest portion of the railway overbridge closed.
Read more
11.2.12 at 7:54am farsighted Resolution
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/197309/intersection-dispute-angers-businesses#comment-27312
I am not yet permitted to comment on this story; Calvin is broadly correct and there is far more to it than meets the eye.
Shaw Savill did not need to be demolished.
We have no idea who you are but you make it interesting! :)
Comment at ODT Online:
Perspective
Submitted by farsighted on Fri, 23/12/2011 – 6:29pm.
Remember back to the start of the SH88 realignment designs? The gyratory? At the corner of Frederick/Anzac? The preservation of the Shaw Savill building?
Now look at the actual alignment, with more curves than the original, and ask yourself how this came to be. There should be an independent inquiry into the land purchases relating to the SH88 realignment.
Link
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Don Hill presented the gyratory at the Stadium Zone plan change hearings – it was shot down then and there by a Christchurch-based transportation engineer (expert witness). Conceptionally, it was too grand and too expensive (an overblown engineering solution) for the railway crossing / roading network. You should ask why. And where CST was sitting.
Bear in mind that Doug Hall is way outside the “stakeholder” and tartan chums clubs. If he hadn’t been he’d surely have been treated with the same rigorous evaluation of what his consent was worth, as J Farry, Hagaman et al did over purchase of their land for the construction of the stadium. If not actual money he could have expected easy-peasy noddy-winksy consents for anything he wanted to build, demolish or excavate for many many years……..
This looks as if it were taken straight from Mal’s Directory of Half-Truths http://www.answers.com/topic/otago-stadium.
Wikipedia does allow edits. Fun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forsyth_Barr_Stadium
There are two trails to follow. One is the money trail via Shaw Savill building. The other is the paper trail of correspondence between the two disputing parties. The latter is extensive and damning…
The questions that need to be asked are:
Q: Who owned the land the Shaw Savill building was on?
Q: When was the decision taken to demolish Shaw Savill?
Q: Who negotiated the transaction for the owner?
Q: Is that person connected in any way to a prominent member of the PDT? To the DCC? To the University of Otago?
Q: How was a notified consent avoided for Anzac Ave/Frederick St?
Q: How did this impact on the realignment with respect to the Hocken Building?
Q: Who said “I’m going to teach —- —- a lesson?”
*PDT (Stadium) Project Delivery Team
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Allow me to start with the last question first.
Q: Who said “I’m going to teach —- —- a lesson?”
A: The Property Manager.
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7.7.09 https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/goodbye-to-great-store-buildings-in-parry-st/ [see comment]
21.4.10 http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/102619/stadium-property-issues-near-resolution
Anonymous asks: Is that person connected in any way to a prominent member of the PDT? To the DCC? To the University of Otago?
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CST Press Release at Scoop 12.11.08
New Chair For Stadium Project Delivery Team
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0811/S00191.htm
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17.8.09 Stakeholders Report
Click to access Report-to-the-Council-re-Stakeholders-Group-report-and-composition-of-group.pdf
See Summary (page 1)
“The Stakeholders Group met on Friday 7 August 2009 to consider the report to come forward to the Council which they agreed to with some minor modification. This report is attached. […] The CST also brought to the attention of the Stakeholders Group their desire to change the composition of the Project Delivery Team which was agreed to by the Stakeholders Group. The Project Delivery Team will now comprise the Chairman, Stewart Barnett, Mike Coburn, the CEO of the Dunedin Venues Management Ltd/CST and the Chief Operating Officer of the University of Otago. The specialist skills that were previously around the table such as Linda Rieper from the Westpac Stadium and Brian Dackers from Rider Levett Bucknall, can be utilised without them having to be present at the PDT. The Council’s CEO is to be retained as an advisor to the Project Delivery Team.”
See Recommendations (page 2)
“[5] That the Council notes that the Stakeholders Group has approved changes to the composition of the Project Delivery Team as follows:
Chairman – Stewart Barnett
Mike Coburn
CEO of Dunedin Venues Management Ltd/CST
Chief Operating Officer, University of Otago
In attendance: CEO of Dunedin City Council
Development Director, CST
Arrow International Project Manager
Commercial Manager, CST (as required).”
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19.3.11 [Jim Harland] https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2011/03/19/forsyth-barr-stadium-base-building-further-requirements/#comment-16308
13.6.11 [McLauchlan Coburn connection] https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/dcc-has-unlimited-ability-to-cost-in-big-spends-apparently/#comment-18129
Richard Walls (may he rest in peace) told me I was wrong to suggest that the DCC had erred by not notifying the SH88 realignment.
I was not wrong.
“erred” is an understatement.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/206000/dcc-admits-mistake-case-back-court
I would say DCC’s deliberate oversight.
Too many in-house planners (then) to ignore the planning conventions necessary for the realignment.
New post.