Internal Affairs is a whole other planet #whitecollarcrime #DIArorts

● The Trusts Charitable Foundation (TTCF Inc) ● The Trusts Community Foundation Ltd (TTCF Ltd) ● Otago Rugby Football Union (ORFU) ● Professional Rugby ● Centre of Excellence for Amateur Sport ● Harness Racing ● Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) ● Gambling Commission ● Pokies ● Rorts ● Organised Crime ● Serious Fraud ● Political Interference

Department of Internal Affairs is a despicable excuse for a regulatory authority – corrupt (yes), criminal (question mark) and unethical (100%) DIA management, now with aid of the Buddle Findlay goof. LAUGHABLE.

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Link supplied.

SOFT SOAP SEEK – DIA wants two new investigators to NOT investigate
http://www.seek.co.nz/Job/12-504-investigator-x2/in/wellington-wellington-central/23689377

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Thanks Hype O’Thermia!

NZ Herald – What Bob Jones said….
19.6.12 Pokies nothing to do with charity

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Related Post and Comments:
25.7.12 Martin Legge backgrounds TTCF (pokie trust) and Portage and Waitakere Licensing Trusts #DIA

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

To DVML Board, from Ian Tayor [sic]

[scanned]

ODT 22.12.12 Open Letter p34

.

### ODT Online Mon, 24 Dec 2012
Response to stadium letter ‘encouraging’
By John Gibb
Dunedin businessman Ian Taylor is heartened by the ”huge support” he has gained for his open letter to the Forsyth Barr Stadium’s board. In the open letter, published in Saturday’s Otago Daily Times, Mr Taylor said he had on ”numerous occasions” sought answers from the Dunedin Venues Management Ltd (DVML) board about the awarding of the stadium’s preferred supplier contract for audio services. He had since received dozens of supportive messages, and been directly approached by many people, in a ”really, really encouraging response”. Otago ratepayers had funded the stadium and it was expected ”local companies would be the first to benefit”. He was concerned the record of a company such as Strawberry Sound had been ignored and the contract awarded to an ”outside company” that did not exist before July, despite a requirement for Strawberry Sound to show it had operated for at least five years, the letter said. DVML chief executive Darren Burden said it was ”strange to say the least” Mr Taylor had complained about a ”deafening” silence from DVML.
Read more

.

ODT 29.12.12 Letters to the editor p30

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

‘Low-rises are great for the community and the residents’

### theglobeandmail.com Tuesday, 10 July 2012, 1:07 PM EDT
Last updated Tues, 10 July 2012, 1:15 PM EDT
Real Estate
High time for more low-rises
By Nadani Ditmars
The traditional “Vancouverist” model of a tower and podium may well be headed for a civic sea change. In the midst of controversy over proposed new towers – like the Rize Alliance development in Mount Pleasant that continues to draw significant community opposition despite being approved by council – several new “low-rise” projects are quietly making their mark on the urban landscape.

Call it the “slow-rise” revolution if you will, but the model that is gaining ground is one that evokes an earlier era and a more human scale, with uniquely contemporary design. Centred around Vancouver’s historic neighbourhoods, projects like Gastown’s Paris Annex, Chinatown’s Flats on Georgia and Mount Pleasant’s Collection 45 offer modernist architectural values that respect the surrounding built-and-social environments in a way that the city’s growing number of cookie-cutter towers do not.

Developer Robert Fung, whose six-storey Paris Annex building will be completed this summer, and has already sold out, contends that “our region needs density – it’s crucially important. But that doesn’t mean that it has to be exclusively through high-rises.” He notes that Paris, one of the densest cities in the world, achieved that density largely through the six-storey walk-up typology.

While he believes that high-rises can be designed with sensitivity to their environment, low-rises offer certain advantages, says Mr. Fung, “They increase light in an area,” he notes. “They offer a strong sense of identity and individuality, but at the same time make it easier for neighbours to get to know each other.”

Because of the low-rise’s need to be “strongly contextual to where they are,” he says, “that can often mean a higher level of design, and greater attention to detail,” noting that “our historic neighbourhoods tend to offer greater opportunities for this, as the buildings have to have a greater sense of engagement with their environment.”

He notes that some towers in the area, like the Woodwards one, tend to be “inward looking” with a lack of “street-front engagement.” Low-rises by nature have a greater engagement with the street and tend to go against the grain of the “commodity ubiquity towers” that proliferate around, say, the False Creek South area.
The Paris Annex is a conjoined fraternal twin of sorts to the next-door heritage conversion (and former HQ of Paris boot-makers) Paris Block. Both buildings, designed by architect Gair Williamson, share service core infrastructure.

“You have to walk through the old 1907 building to enter the new one,” notes Mr. Williamson. “Every day, residents are literally moving through history.”

The elegant 35-foot building of glass and steel will contain 2,500 square feet of retail on the ground floor and mezzanine, with 17 market residential units on the upper floors.

The constraints of these “character sites,” as Mr. Williamson calls them, “make them unique. When you work on a 25-foot site, you have to respond with integrity and be hyper-aware of the surrounding environment.”
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

A Christmas Tale

Thanks for copy, Anonymous!

‘As they walked back to Duloc [Dunedin], the princess stopped struggling and began to talk with Shrek and Donkey. She wanted to know more about Lord Farquaad [Edgar].

‘Let me put it this way, Princess,’ Shrek smirked. ‘Men of Farquaad’s stature are in short supply.’

‘I don’t know,’ Donkey snickered, ‘there are those who think little of him.’

Finally, they reached the top of a small hill and there it was … Farquaad’s tall castle stood proudly on the horizon.’

From the pages of Shrek: The Complete Story, by Dreamworks Pictures.

“It’s a Farry Tale to scare the britches off even the hardiest of Ratepayers.”

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Proposed hotel – ODT graphic indicates building height

ODT Online 21.12.12 (screenshot)

Read the article by Chris Morris:
Waterfront hotel: How big would it be?

UPDATED POST 22.12.12
Hotel/Casino/Investor updates for 41 Wharf Street:
● Queenstown/Auckland Casinos (share swaps) Link to comment
● Macau.com Link to comment

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Related Posts:
19.12.12 Hearing for proposed hotel – competencies, conflicts of interest?
16.12.12 Proposed Dunedin Hotel #height
10.12.12 Proposed hotel, 41 Wharf St – “LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS”
7.12.12 Proposed hotel – Truescape shenanigans
6.12.12 Dunedin Hotel – revised design
2.12.12 Roy Rogers and Trigger photographed recently at Dunedin
26.11.12 Proposed hotel, 41 Wharf Street – indicative landscape effects
20.11.12 City planner’s report recommends against consent for hotel
10.11.12 Dunedin Hotel, 41 Wharf Street (LUC 2012-212)
4.10.12 DUNEDIN: We’re short(!) but here is some UK nous…
8.9.12 Waterfront Hotel #Dunedin (Applicant names?)
7.9.12 Waterfront hotel: DCC to notify resource consent application
23.6.12 Mis(t)apprehension: website visits, not bookings?
16.5.12 Dunedin Hotel

UGLY DOESN’T COVER IT

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Hearing for proposed hotel – competencies, conflicts of interest?

Comments received.

Phil
Submitted on 2012/12/19 at 12:49 am
The consent process in New Zealand is fatally flawed by having unqualified elected officials on the hearings panels. In Europe consent hearings are presided over by qualified independent persons. The applicant has little chance of covering up a project’s shortcoming with glitter and sparkles, as is the case with this current application. The risk for bias or for conflicts of interest is also dramatically reduced to the point where it is no longer a factor in decisions. We all know, from the Mayor’s repeated media broadcasts of glee, that approval of this hotel is a foregone conclusion.

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Phil
Submitted on 2012/12/19 at 12:52 am
At the very least they should be stopping Colin Weatherall from attending the City Planning consents meetings every week, to “advise” the trained planners on the best approach they should be taking on certain pending applications. No conflict of interest there, right ? Only on this Council could we have the least qualified person telling the most qualified people how to do their jobs and what conclusion to reach.

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Related Posts:
16.12.12 Proposed Dunedin Hotel #height
10.12.12 Proposed hotel, 41 Wharf St – “LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS”
7.12.12 Proposed hotel – Truescape shenanigans
6.12.12 Dunedin Hotel – revised design
2.12.12 Roy Rogers and Trigger photographed recently at Dunedin
26.11.12 Proposed hotel, 41 Wharf Street – indicative landscape effects
20.11.12 City planner’s report recommends against consent for hotel
10.11.12 Dunedin Hotel, 41 Wharf Street (LUC 2012-212)
4.10.12 DUNEDIN: We’re short(!) but here is some UK nous…
8.9.12 Waterfront Hotel #Dunedin (Applicant names?)
7.9.12 Waterfront hotel: DCC to notify resource consent application
16.5.12 Dunedin Hotel

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Yesterday, chairman of the hearing committee, commissioner Weatherall reiterated that the three elected commissioners have NO conflicts of interest.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Delta hasn’t fixed Union St West after EIGHT WHOLE MONTHS

What’s really happening inside the council-owned company?

Only students, they’ll put up with anything….
The arrogance knows no bounds.

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### ODT Online Mon, 17 Dec 2012
Roadworks drag on … and on …
By Debbie Porteous
Delta says it regrets any inconvenience caused by a series of problems that have resulted in roadworks on a section of a Dunedin street for the past eight months. There have been roadworks in parts of Union St since May, when a water main was damaged during work to install ultra-fast broadband under the street. Dunedin City Council-owned utility company Delta, which was contracted to do the associated roadworks on the street, claimed insurance to cover the cost of fixing the water main and reinstating the road.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Proposed Dunedin Hotel #height

The applicant has supplied a transverse section of the building proposal showing calibrated basement, podium and tower levels. The building height to top of roof structure is marked on the drawing as 96.300 metres.

As published at ODT Online:

OPINION » Your Town » Dunedin
What does 97m look like?
By ej kerr on Fri, 14 Dec 2012

Last night I took another tour of the Settlers Museum, having been through a month ago while exhibition displays were being populated, before the new foyer was completed.

The link to the Chinese Garden has yet to be made at the south end of the old NZRS building.

In the museum we have an impressive series of new and refurbished spaces, the reading of which is generally low and long, suited to the narrow site between the railway and State Highway 1, and sympathetic to the immediate historic built environment.

Looking out from the museum’s new foyer, which takes evening light amazingly well, across the traffic on SH1, there is old Dunedin Prison (1898), Dunedin Law Courts (1902), Dunbar House (former Dunedin Police Station, c.1895) and Leviathan Hotel (known as ‘Leviathan Railway Temperance Hotel’ when built in 1884).

This precinct flows into Anzac Square to the north, with Dunedin Railway Station (1906); lower Stuart Street featuring Law Courts Hotel (Auld Scotland Hotel was established on site in 1863), and Allied Press Building (former Evening Star Building, 1928); The Exchange area (old CBD); and Queens Gardens and the warehouse district to the south.

I mention this unique ‘cultural heritage landscape’ of buildings and green space because the impressive large-screen video flyover provided at the museum, as I understand, by Animation Research Ltd (ARL), shows exactly where the proposed 27-storey hotel and apartment block at 41 Wharf Street, if consented and constructed, will deliver significant irreversible adverse effects in the neighbourhood context – including for the Steamer Basin (see cruise operations by MV Tiakina and MV Monarch) and Dunedin Harbourside Historic Area (registered by New Zealand Historic Places Trust in 2008); and the Burlington Street Historic Area (registered in 1994), comprising Burlington St between High St and Moray Place (captures First Church, Burns Hall, Commerce Building, RSA Building, and Garrison Hall).

The adverse effects would be entirely due to the unwarranted height and overbearing design of the proposed hotel and apartment block.

The effects cannot be mitigated.
ARL should be asked to ‘insert’ the offending tower proposal into the museum flyover to gauge public reaction.

Alternatively, for no cost, Dunedin residents can walk or drive into the closed-off section of lower Rattray St beside the old level crossing and the Chinese Garden and take a look at the railway lighting tower.

This structure is approximately 35 metres in height. Imagine, at this street location, the hotel bearing down on you from 97 metres above.

With this height comparison think what happens to your enjoyment of the views, buildings and surroundings, together with your experience of sun and wind (microclimate)… and why for so many years Queen Elizabeth II Square in downtown Auckland was unalterably inhospitable, it was a rare day if anyone enjoyed lingering there before the Britomart Transport Centre was developed.

We’re not going to get a Britomart in Dunedin.

In terms of urban design, the proposed hotel and apartment tower is going to sever and destroy the sense of place – and your connection with the harbour edge, physically, metaphorically, spiritually, tangibly and intangibly.

Without end, without moral or ethical consideration as posed by the application documentation (no footbridge included).

And with the hearing committee taking that disingenuous path of wanting more information from the applicant so to tick boxes for consent to be granted.

The mayor has been lobbied by Betterways Advisory Ltd and friends; the politics is thick with ‘red carpet’ and promissories… as yet, there’s nothing solid, concrete or foundational in the appearance of the application. Is the city council about to bind us with a badly scribbled note worth $100m.

Ode to a mocking tower, at 35 metres. If only it could speak.

ODT Link

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

“Little faith in financial decision making, what now DCC?”

Council spending: It’s got to the point the personages of Cull and Brown are indistinguishable – perhaps an iPhone would help map the moles.

### ODT Online Sun, 16 Dec 2012
Mixed reaction to axing plan hearings
By Chris Morris
An efficiency drive that could spell the end to days of public hearings on councils’ annual plans has drawn mixed responses from within the Dunedin City Council. A recommendation to axe the requirement for councils to prepare and consult on annual plans was included in an independent report released this week by the Local Government Efficiency Taskforce. The report recommended councils prepare long-term budgets – undertaken every three years – in the first year of their term, but then only annual budgets for the remainder of each term. The annual budgets would not require consultation unless they triggered an amendment to long-term plans, the report suggested.
Read more

****

### ODT Online Sun, 16 Dec 2012
Greater use of technology promoted
By Chris Morris
Dunedin city councillors could soon be beaming in their votes by iPad and Skype if a push to increase the use of technology by local authorities finds favour. The suggestion came in a Local Government Efficiency Taskforce report released this week, which recommended investigating greater use of technology by councils. The taskforce suggested there were efficiencies to be gained by promoting the use of technology, which could potentially allow councillors to contribute to meetings – and even vote – without actually being there. The recommendation was met by a mix of cautious optimism in Dunedin, where a digital divide of sorts existed among city councillors.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Perspective: stadium turmoil outweighs arts festival failure

The old names keep popping up.

Responsibility for the accounting and administration of The Otago Festival of the Arts 2012 falls squarely on the board of trustees. No-one else.

Learn more about The Otago Festival of the Arts Trust here.
Registration No: 980660

Officers/Trustees:
Paul Dallimore, patron
Malcolm Farry, chairman
Beverley Smith
Warren Leslie
Stuart McLauchlan
Rosey McConnon
Barbara Larson

One of the trustees is prominent chartered accountant and professional director Stuart McLauchlan.

The chairman of the arts trust is Malcolm Farry, better known as chairman of the Carisbrook Stadium Charitable Trust. The stadium trust has occupied a central role in the set-up and failure of Dunedin’s new Forsyth Barr stadium, involving a multimillion dollar cost blowout and contributing heavily to the overall indebtedness of Dunedin City Council and council companies.

Mr Farry’s business consultancy, Farry Riddell, operating out of Forsyth Barr House, was advertising prominently in the Otago Daily Times recently. The online identity for the firm has a ‘global’ black and white theme (link).

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Mr Farry yesterday apologised for the delays, saying they had been caused by poor administration of the event.

### ODT Online Sat, 15 Dec 2012
Festival turmoil: artists to be paid
By John Lewis
An interim manager has been appointed to the Otago Festival of the Arts to sort out the disarray in the organisation’s financial affairs. Of about 30 local, national and international groups who performed in the October 5-14 event in Dunedin, some have not been paid. Festival director Alec Wheeler has resigned. However, Festival Trust chairman Malcolm Farry said yesterday all artists would be paid by the end of the year.

A source close to the organisation said historically, all artists were paid before they performed, but this year’s acts were not.

Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Stadium: DCC runs amok with $750K annual subsidy to DVML

Updated Post 12.12.12 2:30am

Dunedin City Council has voted for ratepayers to substantially subsidise the multimillion dollar loss-making stadium operation!

The local body elections take place in October 2013 !!!

### ODT Online Tue, 11 Dec 2012
$750,000 a year for community use of stadium
By Chris Morris
Details of a deal under which the Dunedin City Council will spend $750,000 a year to subsidise greater community use of the Forsyth Barr Stadium have been confirmed. Councillors at yesterday’s full council meeting voted to accept a new service level agreement between the council and Dunedin Venues Management Ltd, the company running the city’s loss-making roofed venue.

Council chief executive Paul Orders said the agreement would be ”a holding position” until the outcome of the wider review was known. Despite opposition from Crs Thomson, Vandervis and Teresa Stevenson, councillors voted 11-3 to approve the agreement.

The agreement confirmed the council would pay $750,000 a year to DVML in return for enhanced access to the venue – at reduced or no cost – for community groups. The extra funding was first agreed by councillors in May, but the service level agreement – detailing the requirements of each party as part of the deal – was only ready to be endorsed by councillors yesterday.
Read more

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Report – Council – 10/12/2012 (PDF, 141.1 KB)
Service Level Agreement between the Dunedin City Council and Dunedin Venues Management Ltd

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Proposed hotel, 41 Wharf St – “LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS”

with apologies to Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour

BUT TRUESCAPE SAID IT WOULD BE SHORT~!!! *WAILS

[how to wrestle the casino venue licence off your competitor]

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Related Posts:
7.12.12 Proposed hotel – Truescape shenanigans
6.12.12 Dunedin Hotel – revised design
2.12.12 Roy Rogers and Trigger photographed recently at Dunedin
26.11.12 Proposed hotel, 41 Wharf Street – indicative landscape effects
20.11.12 City planner’s report recommends against consent for hotel
10.11.12 Dunedin Hotel, 41 Wharf Street (LUC 2012-212)
4.10.12 DUNEDIN: We’re short(!) but here is some UK nous…
8.9.12 Waterfront Hotel #Dunedin (Applicant names?)
7.9.12 Waterfront hotel: DCC to notify resource consent application
16.5.12 Dunedin Hotel

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Enhancing building performance #eqnz

Knee-jerk reactions to government proposals are hardly necessary at Dunedin, the DCC’s earthquake-prone buildings policy has already been launched.

DCC Earthquake Strengthening + Policy

ODT 8.12.12:
Dunedin City Council [policy planner – heritage] Glen Hazelton said the Government’s proposals were “pretty much in line” with the council’s existing policy. That policy required owners whose buildings were found to be less than 34% of code requirements to upgrade. Owners had between 15 and 34 years to do so, depending on the state of their building, meaning some would face shorter timeframes under the Government’s proposals than they had expected, but not extra costs. The most earthquake damage-prone buildings had faced the shortest timeframes anyway under the council’s policy. The council had warned owners of the possibility timeframes would be reduced from 34 years.
The council’s own buildings – including the likes of the Town Hall, Municipal Chambers and Railway Station – were already having their earthquake strength tested, council city property manager Robert Clark said. That work began early this year and up to 30 written reports on individual buildings were expected by mid-next year. Some, such as the Municipal Chambers, had already been strengthened, while others, like the Railway Station, were considered to be of sturdy construction, but were being checked, he said. Results were yet to be made public, but buildings appeared to be “measuring up at the moment”, reaching 66% of the building code or even better, he said. The council already faced extra costs, having initiated its own checks, but it was “appropriate” to do so and ensure the health and safety of staff and the public. He expected the checks would meet the requirements of the Government proposals, although detailed information was yet to be received. Mr Clark doubted buildings would need to be abandoned or demolished.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/238351/quake-plans-could-see-buildings-adandoned

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### NZ Herald Online 5:30 AM Saturday Dec 8, 2012
Earthquake changes could cost $1.7bn
By Isaac Davison
Uncompromising proposals to eliminate or strengthen earthquake-prone buildings could change the face of character areas such as Mt Eden’s Dominion Rd, and cause complex disputes in high-rise apartments owned by multiple parties. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has proposed seismic assessment of all commercial and high-rise, multi-unit buildings in New Zealand – believed to be 193,000 properties.
Those that were not upgraded to withstand a moderate-sized earthquake within 10 years of assessment would be demolished.
The Government proposals were in response to a Canterbury Earthquake Royal Commission report on quake-prone buildings, released yesterday. The ministry broadly agreed with the Royal Commission’s recommendations, but it proposed more lenient timeframes for strengthening and did not agree that the minimum threshold for remedial work should be raised. Housing and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson said to do so would impose “catastrophic” costs on society.
The Government proposals have been released in a consultation paper. If they are adopted, the cost of the changes would be borne by councils and property owners.
Read more + Q&A

*****

Only 39 people died due to unreinforced masonry buildings at Christchurch, that’s remarkably few given the age and size of the city, the population size and concentration, and the extent of devastation caused by the quakes.

### NZ Herald Online 10:58 AM Friday Dec 7, 2012
Most NZ buildings to be quake assessed
By Isaac Davison
All non-residential buildings and high-rise, multi-unit apartments in New Zealand will be assessed for earthquake risk and the results made public under Government proposals released this morning.
Any building found to be at risk of collapse will have to be strengthened or demolished within 15 years under the proposed changes, which form the Government’s response to a Royal Commission investigation into earthquake-prone buildings after the Canterbury quakes.
The Government planned to adopt many of the commission’s recommendations, but has chosen longer timeframes and lower minimum standards of building strengthening than the report proposed.
The commission found there was poor information on earthquake-prone buildings in New Zealand, lack of central guidance on defining and repairing these structures, and variable council approaches to fixing the problem. Only 23 of 66 local authorities were able to tell the commission how many earthquake-prone buildings were in their area.
Read more

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Related Posts and Comments:
19.7.12 Tonight – NZHPT Open Lecture WIN CLARK
2.7.12 Demolition by neglect. Townscape precincts.
26.1.12 Earthquake strengthening: voluntary targeted rates scheme
28.12.11 NZHPT National Heritage Preservation Incentive Fund
15.12.11 Dunedin: Nominations for heritage re-use awards close next week
5.11.11 Barlow Justice Valuers / New Zealand Historic Places Trust—Heritage Interiors Award 2011-2012
10.10.11 Facebook: Upright! Supporting Dunedin’s Built Heritage
9.10.11 Facebook: Upright! Supporting Dunedin’s Built Heritage
9.10.11 Diesoline – supreme winner of the inaugural Dunedin Heritage Re-use Awards
8.10.11 Workshop for heritage building owners – 23 November
3.10.11 Historic heritage SAVE
14.9.11 DCC Media Release: Dunedin’s Heritage Buildings
13.9.11 DCC assistance possible for earthquake strengthening
1.9.11 DCC Finance, Strategy and Development Committee
29.7.11 Disappearing heritage #Dunedin
4.5.11 Dunedin’s goldrush-era heritage won’t fall over, unless you make it
26.4.11 Dunedin Heritage Buildings Economic Re-use Steering Group
28.3.11 Dunedin earthquake proneness 2
10.3.11 Layers of Gold – Dunedin Heritage Festival 18-21 March 2011
21.2.11 Dunedin Heritage: Central government should be contributing
21.2.11 The proactive heritage development lobby EXISTS in Dunedin
19.2.11 Dunedin, are you ‘of a mind’ to protect Historic Heritage?
20.1.11 Dunedin Heritage Fund
16.1.11 DScene: Honour heritage
26.12.10 Historic heritage notes

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Proposed hotel – Truescape shenanigans

Comment and combined image received today [email].

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“I confirm that the single frame simulations that Truescape has produced, accurately shows the proposed development on the 41 Wharf Street site.”

Yeah, right.
See images attached.

The lighting tower is the point of comparison. It is 35m tall. In the Truescape simulation [left], it appears to be approximately 50% of the height of the hotel, which would make it 70m. In the reference image [right], it is more accurately depicted as about 1/3rd of the height, which is correct.

[ends]

Sources:
● Evidence of Rachael Stanners -Truescape (PDF, 3.4 MB) Evidence presented to the Hearings Committee

● LUC-2012-212 12. Viewpoint booklet by Truescape (PDF, 3.4MB)
This document is a scanned copy of the application for resource consent

● Images by Madeleine Lamont (Submission No. 422) reproduced at Proposed hotel, 41 Wharf Street – indicative landscape effects (26.11.12)

● Application information – including post application and briefs of evidence to hearing: http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/council-online/notified-resource-consents/current-notifieds/luc-2012-212

******

At ODT Online…
[Excerpts]

On hearing session, Thursday 6 December
ORC counsel Alistair Logan said the hotel’s visual impact was reason enough to reject the consent application, but Betterways director Steve Rodgers had indicated no downsizing would be considered. That made the company’s proposal an “all or nothing” bid and “given that choice, there is only one answer – nothing”, Mr Logan said.
Simon Parker, from the New Zealand Institute of Architects Southern Branch, said the hotel would block views and destroy the character of the area, and Paul Pope, of the Dunedin Amenities Society, said it would dominate the landscape in a way “not seen in Dunedin before”.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/238134/plop-architecture-among-litany-criticisms

The hearing is adjourned but will resume on Monday 17 December for up to three further days of submissions.

******

On hearing session, Wednesday 5 December
The session was dominated by Christchurch barrister John Hardie and two expert witnesses, appearing on behalf of Capri Enterprises Ltd, which own significant tracts of industrial land in Dunedin.
Betterways had to show the hotel would have effects that were no more than minor, or met the policies and objectives of the district plan, and “I don’t think the proposal meets either of the tests”, Mr Hardie said. […] Mr Hardie began by questioning the credibility of evidence given by Dunedin architect Francis Whitaker, who gave a glowing endorsement of the hotel plans on Tuesday. Mr Whitaker was an architect, but spoke about urban design issues, which he was not qualified “in any way, shape or form” to do, Mr Hardie said. Mr Hardie said he was not asking for Mr Whitaker’s evidence to be excluded, but might if the same claims were made in the Environment Court. […] He also took aim at evidence from Phil Page, the solicitor acting for Betterways, saying a suggestion the hotel’s height should be ignored – because it would be built on industrial land without height restrictions – was “utter nonsense”.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/237993/submitters-attack-100m-hotel-plans

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Local Government Act Amendment Bill

Federated Farmers
Media Release

Local Government Bill passes, but funding must be next

30/11/2012 4:10:00 p.m.

Federated Farmers welcomes the passage of the Local Government Act Amendment Bill, but more must be done to contain and reduce the rates burden.

“The passage of the Bill is good news for ratepayers. Since 2002 rates have increased an average of 7 percent per year,” Ms Milne says.

“This growth is unsustainable and to rein it in councils and communities need better guidance and clarity on local government spending priorities.

“The Bill does this by changing the purpose of local government away from its activist, open-ended job description towards something more like what most people think local government should focus on: local infrastructure, local public services and local regulation.

“However, the Bill really just tinkers at the margin and will only go part of the way to containing and reducing the rates burden.

“What‘s needed now is funding reform, which so far has been the missing element of the Government’s work.

“It is well known that rates fall heavily and inequitably, with farmers being particularly hard hit. Far too many farmers pay more than $20,000 per year in general rates to fund activities they barely use or benefit from.

“What is perhaps less well understood is that funding policy also affects councils’ regulatory performance, especially when central government makes laws for councils to enforce, but does not provide any resources. The incentives are all wrong.

“We also think limited funding options are a factor in housing affordability, for example when councils impose high development contributions that push up the costs of sections.

“The burden of funding local government must be spread more equitably and that means moving away from the over-reliance on a 17th century system of property value rates and finding new and better tools for councils operating in the 21st century.

“Federated Farmers has always been up for this debate. With growing concern about housing affordability we sense the time is right to make some progress,” Ms Milne says.

For further information contact:

Katie Milne, Federated Farmers rural security spokesperson, 0274 244 546, 03 738 0189

Link to article

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Related Post:
24.9.12 DCC against imposition of local government reforms

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin Hotel – revised design

As advised today, image supplied.

—

Related Posts and Comments:
2.12.12 Roy Rogers and Trigger photographed recently at Dunedin
26.11.12 Proposed hotel, 41 Wharf Street – indicative landscape effects
20.11.12 City planner’s report recommends against consent for hotel
10.11.12 Dunedin Hotel, 41 Wharf Street (LUC 2012-212)
4.10.12 DUNEDIN: We’re short(!) but here is some UK nous…
8.9.12 Waterfront Hotel #Dunedin (Applicant names?)
7.9.12 Waterfront hotel: DCC to notify resource consent application
16.5.12 Dunedin Hotel

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

DCC debt —Cr Vandervis

Email received.

From: Lee Vandervis
To: Elizabeth Kerr
Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2012 10:12 PM
Subject: DScene opinion.

I thought my DScene Debt Update was not bad for a 400 word limit, but despite coming within the limit [382 words], the Editor cut the Mayoral criticism out of my opinion, and more importantly my solutions to worsening debt, without noting abridgement! {See comment. -Eds}

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Dunedin Debt Denial

At last week’s DCC Finance, Strategy and Development meeting where the last quarter’s financial results were presented, Cr MacTavish asked “Are we doing things differently?”

The DCC net debt chart [attached] shows the past ten years of the same massive debt spending, with future projections hoping for small annual reductions.

These future debt reductions are currently vain hopes.

Despite the earnest efforts of our new CEO to reduce ridiculously high DCC operational costs, unplanned extra debt keeps arriving.

DCHL’s planned annual funding profit of $23 million turned out to be a $5 million loss, DVL lost $4 million, DVML lost $3 million, the Milburn Wood Processing Plant suffered a $3 million write-down, the Chinese Garden continues to lose half a million annually, Toitu Settlers losses will dwarf this, another half million at least has been lost due to the Anzac Avenue site access dispute, the expected $5 million ‘saving’ from Town Hall cutbacks has evaporated, the budgeted Carisbrook sale ‘profit’ of $4 million still hasn’t eventuated, and $3 million of unearned dividend has been spent from the Waipori Fund.

Then there are some less obvious reservoirs of mounting debt.

Development Contributions income has stalled for another year, our lines company Aurora has apparently failed to keep up lines maintenance of a rumoured $40 million in recent years, and our unseen drainage system maintenance/renewals backlog may dwarf the Aurora maintenance bill.

In short, we have bought a new Stadium and much else without being able to pay for it.

Standard and Poor’s threaten an interest-increasing downgrade especially if the Jacks Point/Luggate debacle blows up, and the fuse has already been lit.

To answer Cr MacTavish’s question, we are not yet doing things differently.

The direction of this Council remains unsustainable. Soothing talk by our Mayor Cull of ‘no drop in service levels’, ‘no slash and burn staff cuts’, ‘no witch hunt’ of directors, ‘no heads will roll’, means that the same heads will continue to inflate Dunedin’s debt disaster.

We must do things differently and cut service levels, staff numbers, consultant use, habitual tenders, outside directorships and bring our DCC owned companies’ governance back in-house where we can know what they are doing. [cut out by DScene Editor without noting abridgement]

In a rapidly changing world, it is only by doing things differently that Dunedin can reach its wonderful and sustainable potential.

[ends]

DScene 5.12.12 Debt-laden council needs to change tack #bookmark

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Roy Rogers and Trigger photographed recently at Dunedin

Source: ODT Online 2.12.12 [screenshot]

Peter McIntosh takes a great shot. Touching! This was just before old Trigger was led out to paddock and shot. Since processed as pet food.

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Related Posts and Comments:
26.11.12 Proposed hotel, 41 Wharf Street – indicative landscape effects
20.11.12 City planner’s report recommends against consent for hotel
10.11.12 Dunedin Hotel, 41 Wharf Street (LUC 2012-212)
8.9.12 Waterfront Hotel #Dunedin (Applicant names?)
7.9.12 Waterfront hotel: DCC to notify resource consent application
16.5.12 Dunedin Hotel

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Trigger led a double life:

Source: ODT Online 21.11.12 [screenshot – detail]

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr