The committee planned to invite hundreds of submitters to have another say on the new information, before resuming the hotel’s resource consent hearing in March.
### ODT Online Wed, 23 Jan 2013
Further dialogue on hotel
By Chris Morris
Plans for a $100 million five-star hotel on Dunedin’s waterfront are to go back to submitters for another round of public consultation. It was confirmed yesterday the Dunedin City Council’s hearings committee has requested more information from Betterways Advisory Ltd, which wants to build the 28-storey hotel and apartment tower.
The details were contained in a letter from committee chairman Cr Colin Weatherall to Betterways, dated January 17 and released to the Otago Daily Times by Cr Weatherall yesterday. Betterways director Steve Rodgers said when contacted he was still considering its contents, but was frustrated and concerned by the length of time the consent process was taking.
Read more
Cr Weatherall’s letter to Betterways said extra information was required for a “proper understanding” of the hotel and its impact on the immediate surroundings and wider environment.
Information wanted by 15 February:
● An assessment of the environmental effects of construction and wind disturbance arising from the hotel
● A report from a recognised landscape expert
● Additional computer-generated images showing the hotel from locations around the city
● Betterways Advisory Ltd must physically demonstrate the hotel’s height on site in a way that was visible from across the harbour, perhaps by using a tethered balloon.Image: ODT Online 2.12.12 [screenshot]
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Related Posts and Comments:
28.12.12 ‘Low-rises are great for the community and the residents’
24.12.12 A Christmas Tale
21.12.12 Proposed hotel – ODT graphic indicates building height
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
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
What if? Dunedin... 
Well mister Steve Rodgers could always piss off to some other town and try his luck there.
### stuff.co.nz Last updated 16:34 06/02/2013
China clamps down on ‘extravangance’
Chinese radio and television stations are to ban advertisements for expensive gifts such as watches, rare stamps and gold coins, the Xinhua state news agency said today, as part of a push by the government to crack down on extravagance and waste. Such advertisements had ‘‘publicised incorrect values and helped create a bad social ethos‘‘, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) said in a release, Xinhua said. The ban comes after repeated calls from Xi Jinping, China’s president-in-waiting, for a renewed fight against graft. Xi said in a speech on January 22 that targeting the ‘‘flies‘‘, or lowly people involved in corruption, was just as important as going after the ‘‘tigers‘‘, or top officials.
Read more
—
Wonder if that includes sending slave labour over to Dunedin to build a hotel for fellow countrymen from the rich middle class.
Perhaps Tourism Dunedin needs to rethink its various claims.
—
### ODT Online Sun, 10 Feb 2013
Tourism operators find market tough
By Rosie Manins
Dunedin tourism operators will be happy just to maintain the status quo this year, in what they describe as a tough market. Visitor numbers have been declining since a peak about four years ago, and those in Dunedin’s tourism industry do not expect an increase any time soon. Many were happy to have maintained annual visitor numbers in 2012, given the previous year’s Rugby World Cup. But some were not so lucky.
Read more
Say “Cheese”, Mr Saxton.
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### ODT Online Sat, 16 Feb 2013
Guest nights rise in most of Otago but not Dunedin
By Vaughan Elder
Dunedin’s guest nights fell by almost 10% last year, bucking a regional trend in which demand increased in most parts of Otago. The latest figures released by Statistics New Zealand showed that in Dunedin there were 788,429 visitor nights in 2012 compared with 872,167 in the previous year, a decline of 9.6%.
This came as visitor nights in Queenstown rose 5.8% (a total of 2,543,499 nights), 4.3% in Clutha (82,824 nights), 5.5% in Central Otago (300,887 nights) and 5% in the Waitaki (304,456 nights).
Read more
Digger noticed that too and wonders what could have gone wrong with the forecast – http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/245158/tourism-operators-find-market-tough#comment-39310
I thought Farry had solved tourism operators’ problems with his brilliant stadium vision, no? Has the ‘trickle down’ effect that Woodlouse and Farry espoused not quite happened for them? Oh well, tourism operators will just have to take comfort in the knowledge that important ‘business leaders’ did very well indeed out of the stadium, let’s say $15 million dollars worth. I guess some people just make bad choices, as Key would say. Tourism operators should have made sure they owned land where Farry decided the stadium would be built, then they would by all hunky dory. Will tourism businesses do as as Cull demands? Keep on smiling and paying the money for Farry’s Failure to keep on failing?
Boys and girls in tourism, You Have Been Had. Conned, defrauded. And guess what? There are still seven gutless men sitting around council responsible for this, all making decisions about the city’s future. Nice huh? That’s how it works here in Dunedin.
But wait, a hike in December…. graduations, Christmas shopping, Queenstown rocks ?
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### ODT Online Tue, 12 Feb 2013
Boom month for Otago hotels, motels
Otago hotels and motels led the way as South Island accommodation providers enjoyed a healthy rise in guest nights in December. After falling 7% in November, the number of South Island guest nights bounced back 7.2% in December, leading to an overall increase in the national tally. Statistics NZ said Otago was the “main contributor” to the strong result in the South Island.
Read more
Tremaine’s cartoon today is – well, if it had been a comment or letter to the editor it would have been abridged, chopped down to only the words of the first character: “If people are forward looking, they’ll see the merit in this new hotel proposal.”
After that it contains “language that could be offensive to some people” – right on the button.
Tremaine for President!!!
Garrick Tremain – 11 February 2013
### ODT Online Wed, 13 Feb 2013
Hotel promoter cannot meet deadline
By Chris Morris
The company promoting a $100 million waterfront hotel in Dunedin says it will not meet a deadline for additional information requested by the Dunedin City Council’s hearings committee. However, the resource consent hearing that will decide the project’s fate is expected to resume in March, with or without all the material requested, hearings committee chairman Cr Colin Weatherall said yesterday.
Once the information was received, submitters would have until March 1 to make further submissions on the additional material. The hearing was scheduled to resume on March 18.
Read more
Deadline-schmeadline. No wucking forries, guys. Remember the number of lines in the sand all steamroller’d to oblivion as the giant machine belching toxic particulates was driven down Imprudence Parade, turned right into Liars Lane and reached its destination where it remains parked on the No Parking zone in Deepdebt Drive.
As if the lawyer couldn’t find the time to find someone with the time to tether a weather balloon to the proposed height, particularly with the weather being awesome in recent weeks. As if Syd and his tethered lapdog could find the time to collect the crap they keep depositing behind them on their little walks of self-interest.
Steve Rodgers has met only one out of five requests from the hearings committee. The images are again, half-baked. No surprise. This should make for a lively session when the hearing is reconvened. The applicant, allegedly, has $100M to spend on the hotel project, but Mr Rodgers says of the height demonstration (by balloon, chopper or crane):
”The cost to provide this exceeds the benefit.”
All up, the hotel proposal is of little benefit to Dunedin, he should have said. Is he going lukewarm on the whole project? Let’s hope the poor dear is being paid for less work. If he’s good he might get to keep the building model (made in China) to play with.
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### ODT Online Sat, 23 Feb 2013
Hotel images but height balloon out
By Chris Morris
The man promoting a $100 million waterfront hotel in Dunedin has produced new images of what the 28-storey tower would look like, but ruled out using a tethered balloon to demonstrate its height. Betterways Advisory Ltd director Steve Rodgers said the company had been asked by committee chairman Cr Colin Weatherall to provide five pieces of information before the hotel’s resource consent hearing resumed next month. The company had been given until last Friday to provide the information, which included the new images, an assessment of environmental effects covering construction and wind disturbance, a report from a recognised landscape expert and a demonstration of the hotel’s height. So far, Betterways has complied with only one of the requests, to provide additional images, but has ruled out a demonstration of the hotel’s height.
Read more
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/246885/hotel-images-height-balloon-out
ODT hasn’t published this one, oh dear. Maybe it was the lower case for Meccano that did it.
Camera club has a really bad day
new
Submitted by ej kerr on Sat, 23/02/2013 – 12:38pm.
Was he going lukewarm on the whole project. $100M to secure for the hotel and apartment building. So no money for little red balloons, a chirpy chopper, or a meccano crane. Our children have been robbed.
Submitted at http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/246885/hotel-images-height-balloon-out
Note the skepticism in the tone of comments so far regarding the “substitute” Betterways has chosen to supply – dodgy pix. I suppose the cost to supply THOSE is much less than the benefit – if Dunedin is as gullible as Mr Rodgers hopes.
Against them is the series of revelations of how we’ve been taken for an expensive ride on the well-maintained grass of Carisbrook, in an immaculate vehicle genuine mileage one lady owner. provided by people who make the worst used car dealers look like saints.
IMHO there’s enough conceit at Betterways to ignore uprisings at hearing, from 18 March. Dodgy it is, Hype. With Cheshire grins taped on.
### ODT Online Fri, 1 Mar 2013
Concern over impact of RMA changes
By Chris Morris
The public’s opportunity to have a say on big developments such as Dunedin’s $100 million waterfront hotel could be eroded by changes to the Resource Management Act, it is feared. Councils around the country were already grappling with the implications of proposed government reforms, which included measures to make it easier for developers of projects worth more than $10 million to skip the council consent stage and go straight to the Environment Court. And, yesterday, Environment Minister Amy Adams released a second wave of proposed changes to the RMA that went even further.
● The changes were designed to streamline the process while protecting the environment, but included new limits on the ability of submitters to oppose projects, restricting them to areas that directly affected them, as well as limiting the overall scope of submissions and grounds for appeals.
● A new Crown body could also be created to undertake consent-processing in areas facing particular growth pressures, and more consents could be processed without notification.
● There would also be new limits on the types of conditions able to be imposed on developers, as well as a push to streamline councils’ resource management plans into one document.
Ms Adams said frustration with the RMA was ”rife”, as delays were costing time, money and lost opportunities, and change was overdue.
Read more
Anna Chinn’s blog conversion with deputy editor Barry Stewart:
The balloon height-measurement is one of them, so we can all see exactly the height it’s going to be. […] Which may shock a few people actually, I suspect. – Barry Stewart.
Anna’s inquisitive, lateral and independent thinking make me yearn for the way young reporters were trained before corporate management and institutionalised brainwashing brought down the paper.
### ODT Online Fri, 8 Feb 2013
Conversations with Barry #1
By Anna Chinn
Before leaving employ as an Otago Daily Times subeditor, your blogger would frequently visit the office of deputy editor Barry Stewart to discuss editorial journalism, current events, food, and your blogger’s personal tribulations. These conversations will now continue occasionally by telephone, as a dialogue between Wellington and Dunedin. It is hoped they will make fine occasional blog fodder.
Read more
* probably should have been conversation…
Thanks for the link to Anna Chinn’s blog.
Anna’s interview with Barry Stewart has free fall – this and your comment reminded me of how much I used to enjoy, in the 1980s at Auckland, buying Interview magazine (New York). It was founded in late 1969 by artist Andy Warhol.
As Wikipedia says: “The magazine features intimate conversations between some of the world’s biggest celebrities, artists, musicians, and creative thinkers. Interviews are usually unedited or edited in the eccentric fashion of Warhol’s books and The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again“…..BUT…..”Toward the end of his life, as Warhol withdrew from everyday oversight of his magazine, a more conventional editorial style was introduced under editor Bob Colacello.” Etc Etc Link
[The publication’s content can be found online and via an app available on iTunes.]
http://www.interviewmagazine.com/
—
[sample interview, with an old favourite of mine]
ART: Barbara Kruger
By Christopher Bollen – Editor at Large
http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/barbara-kruger/#_
[excerpt]
“…a recent work by Kruger could be found on a wall at Art Basel Miami Beach, alongside convention-center booths showing works by her contemporaries—many of whom have been her peers since the ’70s in downtown New York. On the aluminum-mounted vinyl was printed: “Greedy Schmuck.” Art Basel visitors must have passed this startling graphic accusation and had the same interior rift that I did: “That is about me because I’m participating in this hysterical culture of art-buying. I am the greedy schmuck.” And at the same time, “No, the greedy schmucks are all around me, the ones selling and the ones buying and the ones making the huge profits. I’m just passing through. Yes, that painting is correct; these people are greedy schmucks!” This is how the meaning—and re-meaning—of a Barbara Kruger builds and builds and builds.”
LUC 2012-212
● Submitters: further submissions on the additional information provided by Betterways Advisory Ltd are due to DCC by 5pm on Friday 8 March.
● The additional information supplied by the applicant can be viewed at http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/luc-2012-212
● Submitters wanting to speak to their comments at the reconvened hearing should contact Lynne Robins (Governance Support Officer) on 03 474 3431 before Friday 8 March.
● The hearing will reconvene on Monday 18 March at 9am.
—–
Further information – Gallaway Cook Allan 26/02/2013 (PDF, 40.5 KB)
Further information requests: Construction effects and Wind effects
HCL Methodology (PDF, 2.2 MB)
Construction Advice Dunedin Hotel – Wharf Street
[Andrew Holmes, South Island Major Projects Director, Hawkins Construction]
OPUS Report (PDF, 64.0 KB)
Dunedin Hotel Development – Possible Consent Condition (Wind)
[Neil Jamieson, Research Leader – Aerodynamics]
Response to further information request – Gallaway Cook Allan 15/02/2013 (PDF, 168.5 KB)
Copy of the formal response to the request for further information.
****
Images (artist impression before/after)
Views from around the city – Additional images supplied February 2013.
A formal request for submitter evidence presented to hearing from 17 December 2012 to be uploaded to the DCC website has not yet been met.
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Although the leading story on Stuff of a hot air balloon hitting a building in Australia prompted media to print BALLOON TERROR it seems like a bloody good idea under different circumstances. Surely permission could be given for a hot air enthusiast to take their balloon up to the spot where Dave’s hotel is proposed? The Dunedin City Council could even justify the exercise by using the photo opportunity for its marketing material and website image-of-the-week.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/8426434/Balloon-crashes-into-Aussie-govt-building
Ain’t going to happen before the hearing reconvenes on Monday – submitters have been allowed further submissions to the additional information that Betterways Advisory provided (SFA). No height indicator, no wind tunnel test, no landscape assessment (etc etc) means no ‘fair and reasonable’ assessment of environmental effects AEE) – we’re supposed to blindly “believe!” the badly simulated images Betterways provides. Let’s see what the hearings committee does with all this!
The DCC theory and objective was always ‘fast to Environment Court’ for this application.
The hope is some big submitters remain STAUNCH.
I think Betterways’ persistent swerving from the requirement to provide the information tells the story as eloquently as if they had supplied it – it would be proven as bad as the opponents suspect, in fact it would make their AEE case for refusing the hotel without anyone else having to say a word.
Why else would they be so determined not to let any of the important effects be demonstrated? Ask yourself!
Don’t have to ask. The applicant also wants to go to Environment Court, because there less of the public is involved either in appeal or as party to appeal; and if you remember how the Harbourside plan change was handled through mediation, the plebs who weren’t ‘Chamber-led’ ‘affected’ businesses lost all control of the good points brought to the initial plan change hearings and which involved community-driven access to the waterline.
Got your RMA lawyer ready. And a (discretionary) bank balance.
### ch9.co.nz March 14, 2013 – 7:29pm
Hotel battle back in front of committee
The battle over the proposed Betterways 28 storey hotel in Dunedin will come back before a resource consent committee on Monday. The company behind the $100 million hotel was required to provide more information on issues like wind and construction effects after the last hearing. It has come back with a suggestion for performance standards for wind, rather than wind tunnel testing at this stage. The new information has also attracted opposing submissions from the public.
Ch9 Link [no video available]
Pure gloss from the ODT. Wonder why. Oh yeah, Cargo Cult Alert.
How submitters took the “additional information” gets the last two sentences – and yet it is the 457 submitters opposing the application that truly require the headline. ODT gets its majority copy here from Mr Andrew Holmes, the man that (our friends!) Hawkins Construction dished up, fresh from Farry’s stadium project. ODT fails to get an independent opinion(s) to provide BALANCE.
Debbie Porteous? FAIL. ODT editor? FAIL.
Where is the applicant’s full assessment of environmental effects (AEE).
What are the mitigations.
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### ODT Online Fri, 15 Mar 2013
Hotel construction feasible: report
By Debbie Porteous
Preliminary construction advice on Dunedin’s controversial waterfront hotel proposal says it is ”entirely feasible” to build a 28-storey hotel on the soft soils of the city’s foreshore.[…] Most of the submitters said nothing in the latest round of information altered their opposition to the project. Many said they were dismayed Betterways declined to answer some of the committee’s requests, and the height and visual impact of the building were still their main reason for objecting to it.
Read more
### ODT Online Tue, 2 Apr 2013
Hotel consent deadline extended
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/251489/hotel-consent-deadline-extended