DCC broke → More PPPs to line private pockets and stuff ratepayers

Think ‘New Mosgiel Pool’, put the cost back on the Community!
But wait… “WE CAN HELP” says ex councillor Syd (aka The Slid).

—

### NZ Herald Online 5:30 AM Thursday Jan 30, 2014
PPPs short-term gain but long-term pain
By Tony Holman
OPINION Mayor [Len] Brown has had another vision and is claiming public-private partnerships (PPPs) can relieve the burden on ratepayers. I wonder if he has done his homework. It’s not a vision, it’s a mirage. PPPs are joint ventures between government, or local government, and companies to build major projects such as bridges, tunnels and underground rail – and, in Britain, also hospitals. Too often PPPs overseas end in the failure of the commercial organisation, with the public picking up greatly increased costs to clear up the mess.

PPPs typically involve long-term agreements (25-50 years). They are secret – neither the public nor elected members know the terms. They are weak on accountability with virtually no transparency. They don’t appear on the public body’s “balance sheet” so its financial position looks rosier than it is.

Fixed returns to the commercial business are based on “notional” values and estimates. Real costs are almost always greatly underestimated. PPPs are much more costly than normal public sector construction. Private companies build in higher costs, making the project more expensive and bringing high risk to the venture. But considerable risk is also assigned to the government or local body. Companies can default or go into receivership, creating a debt that has to be paid for by the public and future generations, exactly as if the local body had undertaken the debt directly.
Read more

—

So. There is former chair of DCC Finance, Strategy and Development, Mr Sydney Brown of the Taieri subdivisions and deals to cousins, and his property speculator/investor friends, thinking to drive the new pool project for Mosgiel. Maybe not quite a PPP but damned near it if DCC gives the nod on squishy terms. Your pockets should feel lighter already.

How much can you trust The Slid —as much as the cost of Fubar Stadium.

—

Two comments from Jacob at the draft annual plan thread:

Submitted on 2014/01/27 at 9:00 pm
Mosgiel Pool. The suggestion from council is for the community board to set up a trust with $30k of ratepayers’ money, to do the consultation and get the public to buy in and dig deep and pay for this $12-$18 million project. It doesn’t take long to work out. This is the same setup that led us up the garden path with the stadium. At last count there were four pools in the area to serve the local population. What happens to them. Will they become another liability like Carisbrook? What and who actually is driving the need for a new pool? I recently asked someone who is close to this out in Mosgiel if there has been an analysis done on the need for a new pool, and was told no. But a certain developer in Mosgiel’s main street has plans for himself and his mates to get the public to front up with the money for the building, then they will be able to base some of their business on site at no cost to themselves. Mosgiel is becoming the dog of the city. Big new industrial area was trumpeted a few years ago, to be the answer to the lack of industrial land needed to attract industry to come to Dunedin, sits empty and of no use to anyone. Then we had all the new residential areas opened up in Mosgiel. Most are half empty with spec houses; good rural productive land doing nothing and going nowhere, while the stormwater drains in Mosgiel only work during a drought, and the roads are a mess, no more seal extension. Mosgiel is becoming known as the land of the retirement village and the mobile scooter. Why spend so much on a pool when so many other basic requirements are not being met. Leave it to the community board? Yeah Right.

Submitted on 2014/01/27 at 11:34 pm
Hype. Not being a res of Mosgiel I am not able to answer your question, but I have good contacts out that way who tell me that most of the pools are available, and maybe there are more than the 4 that I mentioned. By the way what is so special about Mosgiel having a new pool, areas like Green Island, Normanby and out on the Peninsula appear not to have one and are just as far from Moana pool as Mosgiel. It appears that the homework for a new pool hasn’t been done out at Mosgiel, but it appears that it was just being used as an attention grabber for the election and that didn’t appear to work either. Like I mentioned before, this has all the hallmarks of another stadium, all bullshit and no substance, just wait to see who gets appointed by the board to do the consultation. The whisper is that it is all cut and dried.

Related Post and Comments:
16.11.13 Community board (Mosgiel-Taieri) clandestine meetings

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: Syd Brown with Mosgiel sign corpsed and tweaked by Whatifdunedin

Mangawhai, Kaipara —we hear ya!

Received from our northern friends (html email partially rebuilt here).
Wednesday, 29 January 2014 4:10 p.m.

—

Getting the Validation Bill ready for Parliament

● The new Mangawhai Ratepayers and Residents Association (MRRA) website can be viewed here.
● “When Government Goes Bad” – see the MRRA video on YouTube.

—

The KAIPARA VALIDATION BILL

KAIPARA’S PROBLEMSParliament “solves” the problems of Kaipara with the Validation Bill

—

LATEST NEWS
● OAG report: Summary
● OAG report: Full Report* (click the sections on the left)
*Link to download report (PDF, 2.6 MB; 423 pages) is broken at OAG website.

A MESSAGE FROM THE MRRA
3 February 2014
The day that JUSTICE finally comes to Kaipara
Come to the Court Case in Whangarei 3-7 February
The High Court is located at 105-109 Bank Street Whangarei
The hearing commences at 10 AM.
You have paid for this, so come and watch it play out. Those who came last time were glued to their seats for the whole day. Watching our justice system in action when the matter is one you are involved in is a riveting experience.
[Six days at court] might be needed but we won’t know until Feb 3rd. The hearing should play out as follows: Administrative stuff first, then MRRA puts its case (possibly all of Monday and some of Tuesday), then KDC puts its case Tuesday and all of Wednesday. Then MRRA replies, which will take part of Friday. The judge will then sum up and indicate what he is going to do, and perhaps reserve his decision which he would then hand down in writing some time later.
The Judge has instructed that a second courtroom be made available with closed-circuit TV to accommodate the large number expected to attend this hearing.
In an earlier decision the Judge said that this judicial review raises important legal questions of wide public interest.
It may be one of the most important cases in connection with Local Government that has ever gone to trial in New Zealand. The issues at stake are of fundamental significance to everyone who lives in this country. This is not a tiff over rates. This is a test of what power elected and appointed officials really have to take money from ratepayers and taxpayers and use it in any way they choose. The Government and the Kaipara District Council (KDC) both say that councils must have the power to take any amount of money they want, for any purpose whatsoever, and the ratepayer has no say at all in the process.
If you think that’s OK, then we have not reached you. If you think it is not OK but nothing can be done about it, please be assured that something can be done — and it is in the High Court where that will happen. Eventually, the people will call a halt to the madness.

—

COUNCIL INCOMPETENCE 29.01.14
Frank Newman comments here on the Dunedin City Council’s fancy $230 million covered stadium that “will forever be a black hole that eats ratepayer money”.
There will be no easy fix for Dunedin’s ratepayers. Their elected representatives of the day were reckless and ratepayers will be punished for a very long time because they (as a society) elected a reckless bunch of people to make decisions on their behalf.
I do not know of the Dunedin Councillors complied with the law and consulted with ratepayers but Kaipara ratepayers find themselves in a very similar situation.
The debt for EcoCare is completely unmanageable for a small council such as the KDC but the Commissioners and the Banks have so far delayed the inevitable day of judgement by mesmerising ratepayers with promises of only three percent rate increases over the next ten years.
How can that happen, you might ask, when there is such a massive debt to pay? The answer is that it can’t. But to levy high rates now and charge extra capital payments per household right across the district would result in a massive rate strike and civil disobedience and the collapse of the KDC.
To prevent that, the Commissioners and the Banks have made promises of minimal rate rises that cannot be substantiated and are so dishonest that they border on the criminal. They are nothing more than a confidence trick and the reality is that, sooner or later, ratepayers across the district will be billed for the principal of the debt. Generations of Kaipara ratepayers will pay for the EcoCare folly just as generations of Dunedin ratepayers will pay for their Stadium folly.
The only difference is that the MRRA has challenged the validity of the Kaipara debt in the High Court and is asking that Court for a ruling that ratepayers are not responsible for an illegal debt that was secretly entered into by the Councillors.
Never before have ratepayers made such a challenge and no doubt many ratepayers across the country will be awaiting the outcome.
If Councils can operate outside the law with utter impunity, with all the watchdogs sound asleep, and the ratepayers have to pay all the bills, then we have been conned into being the peasants at the bottom of a 21st Century feudal system.
That is not a good place to be but unless we get behind the MRRA and support its action, then that is where we will end up.

[ends]

****

LAST WORD from What if? Dunedin…
Will DCC’s stadium review be enough? Answer: NO
We’re staying busy —can’t blog it.

Related Posts and Comments:
3.12.13 LGNZ: OAG report on Kaipara
12.11.13 Northland council amalgamation
29.6.13 Audit NZ and OAG clean bill of health —Suspicious!
21.4.13 Councils “in stchook” —finance & policy analyst Larry.N.Mitchell
19.3.12 Local government reform
21.2.12 Kaipara this time

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Stadium: Brent Edwards cuts the grass (ODT 29.1.14)

Sports Comment (ODT 29.1.14, page 26)
Underperforming stadium needs to lift its game
By Brent Edwards
OPINION There needs to be a more collaborative approach if Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin is to have a chance of fulfilling its enormous potential. It’s here and it’s not going away, whether the naysayers like it or not. It’s a prized asset which has to be maximised and that is not the case at present. […] Rugby watching at the stadium is an experience. But there has been a lack of strong leadership, of continuity, and the resignation of two chief executives in quick time has not helped placate the doubters. Cont/

Free speech and all. Discursive, ill-informed, vacuous —how did Edwards’ opinion piece get past the editor. The column isn’t available online, imagine the comments if it was. By letters or email, pens and typewriters across the city should be flaring with indignation, and FACTS, to pummel the columnist —to educate his sorry arse.

Because papers are still selling today, for the avoidance of ‘plagiarism’, the column isn’t scanned for your amusement. Read it though if you get the chance —at your local library, cafe, McDonalds or workplace staff room. Damned silly to pay for his thoughts.

All those ideas, Brent. Are you rorted, doubters ?????

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Stadium: No 4 at interest.co.nz

Link received from Martin Legge
Monday, 27 January 2014 11:44 a.m.

—

### interest.co.nz January 27, 2014 at 10:30am
Opinion
Monday’s Top 10: New view on mobility; Dunedin’s problem; multinationals and climate change; end of low rents; gold’s odd demand/price setting; Dilbert, and more
Posted by David Chaston
Here’s my edition of Top 10 links from around the Internet at 11:00 am today. We now have a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule for Top 10.

[screenshot – click to enlarge]

Interest Link

The Press 28.6.13 Uncovered stadium possible, Parker says

—

Related Posts and Comments:
25.1.14 Stadium: Some helped it along, or themselves!
24.1.14 Stadium: It came to pass . . .

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Tom McLean on works by Peter Nicholls #sculpture

Late last year Dr Thomas (Tom) McLean (pictured) published an article on some recent works of New Zealand sculptor Peter Nicholls. Dr McLean, a senior lecturer, teaches English at the University of Otago, but also writes on art for the US blogsite The Migrationist. Peter Nicholls suggested I would be interested in the article, and yesterday Dr McLean forwarded the link. The writing is briefly sampled in the hope you’ll pleasure in reading and sharing the full article.

—

The Migrationist: A collaborative international migration blog
Culture & Integration, Personal Stories
Immigrant Woods
December 13, 2013 · by Tom McLean · in Culture & Integration, Personal Stories

My mate Pete and I had just left our Saturday morning coffee gathering when we noticed a tremble of dark feathers in the street. A female blackbird (which in fact is brown) was not doing well. Unable to fly, she had struggled through the grass and stumbled down the curb into the road. I picked her up and placed her under a tree; but this only saved her from cars or bikes. So what to do? Abandoning her to nature seemed logical but heartless. I found a cardboard box, and Pete got his car. Continues/. . .
Art helps us think beyond life’s cardboard box, and as I reflected on my blackbird encounter, the work of Peter Nicholls came to mind. Nicholls’s large sculptures are found in every major New Zealand collection. Bringing together disparate materials, his works are all about movement and encounters: set firmly in place, they encourage the participant (not simply a viewer) to make a journey. One must walk beside or pass through his large works to fully engage with them. His 2008 retrospective at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery was appropriately titled Journeywork, and it included long, stream-like sculptures in wood and metal that seem to flow along the floor. While his works show fine craftsmanship, they are not illusionary; they do not hide the effort that went into them. Nor do they suggest a simple return to nature: those elongated works might suggest a highway as much as a bloodstream or river. Even his most photographed work, Tomo (2005, Connells Bay Sculpture Park), is complex: is it the visualisation of a forest’s lifeblood, or a human imposition on nature? A sinewy marriage of art and nature, or a Formula 1 racetrack through an idyllic landscape?
Read the full article

Tomo 2005 (detail), Connells Bay Sculpture Park. Image: Peter Nicholls

█ The Migrationist is an international, collaborative academic/professional blog designed to promote public discourse informed by academics and professionals who focus on issues surrounding migration, refugees, and human trafficking. The blog is intended as a medium for intelligent discourse on migration issues. The intent is to bring this discussion out of academia and into an accessible forum for anyone who is interested in migration. The Migrationist posts weekly.
The blog was founded in September 2012 by co-editors Amy Grenier and Lali Foster, former M.A. Migration Studies students at University of Sussex in Brighton, United Kingdom. They currently have regular contributors from all over the world and are always looking for regular and guest contributors.

█ Tom McLean’s latest post at The Immigrationist:
The Artist as Global Citizen: Cai Guo-Qiang in Brisbane January 10, 2014
In the mid 1990s I taught English in Xiamen, a coastal city in southern China. Xiamen (also known as Amoy) has a lovely subtropical climate, and today it’s a favourite holiday spot among the Chinese. But from 1842 to the Second World War, it was a treaty port. After the First Opium War, the British took over Hong Kong and forced China to allow foreign consulates to be built… Cont/

More about Tom McLean

—

Peter Nicholls was born in Wanganui, educated at the Canterbury University School of Fine Arts, Auckland Teachers’ College, Elam School of Fine Arts, and gained a Masters in Sculpture at the University of Wisconsin at Superior, USA. His sculptures from the 1970s and 1980s are noted for their amalgam of figural, landscape and architectural abstraction, and energized dynamics in large timber works. It was tectonic and universal rather than site specific. From 1990 it became laterally configured, river hugging and site/place specific, often interrogating historic impositions of order on primal land. Nicholls has numerous large-scale works in private and public collections internationally. http://www.peternicholls.co.nz/

Otago Sculpture Trust

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: odt.co.nz – Peter Nicholls (portrait detail)

Stadium: It came to pass . . .

A rather short-term vision, it turns out, Forsyth Barr Stadium was pitched as a multi-purpose stadium for Dunedin —a necessary investment in the future of the city. At various stages of development the building was also known as Dunedin Stadium, Awatea Street Stadium, New Carisbrook, or its non-commercial official name during the 2011 Rugby World Cup, Otago Stadium. Colloquially, it’s ‘The Glasshouse’, given the resemblance to a horticultural hot house.

The glasshouse-fubar though, has bred of itself a bloated money-sucking monster for DCC, ratepayers, and residents. For accountability and transparency, need we ask if fumigation and sterilisation are enough to eradicate white collar aphids and fungal rorting?

But what happens if the wilting irreparable (no maintenance budget…) stadium also has rugby tests forcibly ‘removed’? Too late, already happened. Bring in the moths, or more of the hopeless ratepayer subsidies?

You want to know how the ‘private th-robbing vision’ of St Farry of Saint Clair (now Queenstown) can possibly be re-envisioned against mountainous council debt? Well, what about recouping lost millions from the stadium’s privateering progenitors?

With yesterday’s dose of “antiseptic sunshine” from DCC chief executive Sue Bidrose (also administered beforehand as DCC quietly mustered its forces) the community stands a good chance to end seven years or more of serial manipulation as the council gullibly, knowingly or otherwise takes the worst ride of its corporate and financial history.

The review of Forsyth Barr Stadium will encompass the entire operating model, from the company operating structure to the way the stadium is run on the ground —done in conjunction with Dunedin Venues Ltd, the parent company, Dunedin Venues Management Ltd, which operates the stadium, and the council’s holding company.

The review will be presented to council mid year, if not sooner, and be accompanied by OPTIONS.

The abrupt announcement of the pending review by council chief executive Sue Bidrose at the Draft Annual Plan 2014/15 meeting yesterday was no doubt astonishing to many present. It showed considerable strength, intelligence and temerity on her part —here is, “good leadership”. As we consider the implications and all facets of what the investigation can begin to reveal, Sue Bidrose should understand that she is supported both from inside and outside this council. There’s agency ‘around about’ geared to elicit information the council isn’t in a position to gather itself.

****

### ODT Online Thu, 23 Jan 2014
Review as council seeks stadium solution
By Debbie Porteous
The Dunedin City Council is to do a fundamental review of the operating and funding models of the Forsyth Barr Stadium, which continues to be unable to meet its budget. Chief Executive Sue Bidrose informed the council this morning that she had instigated the review as it became increasingly obvious the original model for running the stadium, which was set up to suggest the stadium could pay its own way, was “fundamentally optimistic”.
Read more

****

### dunedintv.co.nz January 23, 2014 – 7:23pm
Full review of Forsyth Barr Stadium’s finances to be undertaken
By David Loughrey
The DCC is about to undertake what its chief executive has called a complete and fundamental review of the Forsyth Barr Stadium’s finances. The unexpected announcement came early in the piece, as the council sat to consider its next year’s budget. And ratepayers wary of more of their money heading towards the stadium will be disappointed to hear the review itself will cost them.
Video

****

### radionz.co.nz Updated about 1 hour ago
RNZ News
Reporting by Ian Telfer
Dunedin stadium facing review
The Dunedin City Council says the South Island city’s struggling stadium is being reviewed because it will never make money the way it is run. The announcement was made by the council’s new chief executive, Sue Bidrose, at the start of annual budget setting meetings on Thursday morning.
The $230 million stadium opened in 2011 to replace the Carisbrook ground, but controversy has continued over its construction costs and resulting council debt.
Dr Bidrose said it had become increasingly obvious that the existing model set up to manage and operate the stadium and its finances was broken. She said the stadium’s original budgets were too optimistic and it would never be able to raise the $9 million needed to break even. This year, it has a funding gap of $100,000 or $200,000 and the problem will get worse without a better structure.
Dr Bidrose said some point there has to be a trigger to make a change – and that point is now. The full review will look at everything and put everything possible into the public domain.
A leading opponent of the stadium says she knew it would never pay its way. Bev Butler, the former president of the Stop the Stadium group, says the review vindicates her work. “This is what the debate was about. This is where there were hundreds and hundreds of submissons – high quality submissions telling the council that this is what the peer reviews said and the council ignored it.” Ms Butler says she expects the council will one day have to mothball the stadium because the city cannot afford to run it.
RNZ Link

Radio NZ National – Checkpoint
Dunedin’s stadium would never pay its way, full review ordered
Reporting by Ian Telfer
17:23 It’s been revealed Dunedin’s 230-million-dollar stadium will never pay its way, prompting the city council to order a full ground-up review, including looking at privatising it.
Audio | Download: Ogg MP3 (3:01 )

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: dunedintv.co.nz – Sue Bidrose re-imaged by Whatifdunedin

Jints, this one’s forya

On science communication . . .

Uploaded: May 7, 2012. TheXRelease.
The Lorax By Dr Seuss’s (1972)WebRiP XviD_X-Release
Copyright for this special is owned by “The Cat in the Hat Productions” and current distributors. This is for Entertainment/Educational Purposes only.

“The Lorax is a children’s book written by Dr. Seuss and first published in 1971. It chronicles the plight of the environment and the Lorax, who speaks for the trees against the greedy Once-ler. As in most Dr. Seuss works, most of the creatures mentioned are original to the book. [text]

The book is commonly recognised as a fable concerning industrialised society and the danger it poses to nature, using the literary element of personification to give life to industry as the Once-ler (whose face is never shown in any of the story’s illustrations or in the television special) and to the environment as the Lorax.

The book was adapted as an animated musical television special produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, directed by Hawley Pratt and starring the voices of Eddie Albert and Bob Holt. The line about Lake Erie was spoken by one of the Humming-Fish as they marched out of the river at the foot of the Once-ler’s factory. The special also features more of an in-depth look at the problems, including the Once-ler arguing with himself about what he is doing, and at one point asking the Lorax if shutting down his factory (and putting hundreds of people out of a job) is really the answer. Many of the Lorax’s arguments seem to be focused on how “progress progresses too fast”, in a sense arguing that things might’ve been better if the Once-Ler had come to a balance with the forest and slowed down production of the Thneeds.”

Wikipedia: The Lorax | Dr. Seuss | Political messages of Dr. Seuss

—

Related Posts and Comments:
13.1.14 Taking to water like a duck on oil
24.12.13 Daaave’s $47 million Christmas present to Jinty. We’re paying.

Russell Garbutt at ODT Online:
20.1.14 Global vs the DCC

Jinty MacTavish at ODT Online:
9.1.14 On ethics and hypocrisy…
12.1.14 Climate change policy, cycle investments
20.1.14 Fossil fuel position based on science, best interests
20.1.14 Renewables, jobs and local governance

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

DCC Draft Annual Plan 2014/15

Here come politics from Liability Cull (spendthrift) and performance checks on integrity and guts of new chief executive Sue Bidrose (spendthrift). For every project they personally endorse come cuts to core business (and frills); and ramped up service charges not yet mentioned —with, yes, a rates increase above the rate of inflation (or DCHL will enter another disguised arrangement to borrow money for DCC to artificially keep rates down, like happened last year). An exercise in bulldust is already underway —this is THE year of driving the overworked Spooks-slaves.

Note: Council consolidated debt last cited (Annual Report) as $623 million. In today’s news, $612 million. Where did the $11 million go?

—

Councillors could opt not to spend the $633,000, and keep rates at 2.5%, use the money to pay off debt, or invest it in areas designed to save more money over the longer term. –Cull

### ODT Online Mon, 20 Jan 2014
Spending cuts trim rates rise
By Chris Morris
The DCC cannot afford to be ”profligate” when attention turns to its next budget later this week, despite staff trimming millions of dollars of spending to cut the forecast rates increase to just 2.5%, Mayor Dave Cull says. Mr Cull and council chief executive Sue Bidrose were both full of praise for council staff, who had produced a forecast rates increase lower than the council’s goal of no more than 3% for the 2014-15 year.
Read more

Key numbers (via ODT)
Rates: Up 2.5% (target: no more than 3%)
Savings: About $3 million
Cash in hand: $633,000
Debt: $258.4 million (down $6.3 million) – DCC debt only; excludes companies/stadium.

Key dates
• Jan 23-24 (and Jan 27-29 if required): Council pre-draft annual plan public meetings.
• Feb 24: Council meeting to approve draft plan for consultation.
• March 15: Public consultation begins.
• April 15: Submissions close.
• May 7-9: Public hearing on draft plan submissions.
• May 14-16: Councillors’ draft plan deliberations.
• June 23: Council meeting to adopt annual plan and confirm rates.
• July 1: 2014-15 annual plan active.

****

The council’s consolidated debt – spread across the council and its companies – stood at about $612 million. However, the council’s share of that, excluding companies, was forecast to drop from about $264 million in 2013-14 to $258 million in the coming financial year. –Bidrose

### ODT Online Mon, 20 Jan 2014
Council set to crest debt summit
By Chris Morris
The Dunedin City Council looks set to reach the summit of its debt mountain and start paying it down over the other side. However, Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull and council chief executive Sue Bidrose have cautioned now was not the time for profligate council spending, and discipline would be needed for years to come.
Read more

The figures (via ODT)
DCC core debt forecast*

• 2013-14 $264.7 million
• 2014-15 $258.4 million
• 2015-16 $249.1 million
• 2016-17 $238.5 million
• 2017-18 $233.8 million
• 2018-19 $226.6 million
• 2019-20 $217.5 million
• 2020-21 $202.6 million
• 2021-22 $187.9 million

* Gross debt, excluding DCC companies.

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Comics: The Oatmeal

15.11.12 http://theoatmeal.com/comics/making_things

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oatmeal
Twitter: Follow Matthew Inman @Oatmeal
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theoatmeal

### SmartPlanet.com 14 Oct 2012
Q&A: The Oatmeal’s Matthew Inman talks crowdfunding, creativity
By Molly Petrilla
Creator of the popular humour website The Oatmeal, Matthew Inman recently turned his talents toward philanthropic crowdfunding, raising $1.37 million for a new Nikola Tesla Museum. Read more

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
… with thanks to another of my nearby inspirations :)

Garrick Tremain: Our Stadium

16 January 2014

See this image full size and other recent work by Tremain at http://garricktremain.com/cartoons/

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Thinking of . . .

The mother and everyone who tried to help or has been affected.

—

A bank account has been opened for Katharine Webb. The ANZ bank account (06-0909-0401308-00) is under the name ‘St Leonards School Board of Trustees’.

Or visit the school’s website at http://www.stleonardsdn.school.nz/

—

Botanic Garden: Visitor-vandals caught by DCC webcam

“Dunedin City Council parks manager Mick Reece said the botanic garden team had been intending to install security video for some time, but the weekend’s vandalism had made it an imperative.” –ODT

oooooohhh . . .

Ouroboros with nighttime visitors via DCC webcam. Photo supplied.
[click to enlarge]

The group were there for about 15 minutes on Saturday 11 January.

DCC website: Dunedin Botanic Garden cam
Views of the botanic garden from the top of Croque-o-Dile café.

—

### ODT Online Wed, 15 Jan 2014
Vandalism spurs CCTV move
By Debbie Porteous
Closed-curcuit television is to be installed at the Dunedin Botanic Garden after vandals damaged the city’s latest piece of public art. Someone entered the garden at the weekend and put a dint in the steel worm sculpture, also known as Ouroboros. The sculpture was installed in mid-December.
Read more

—

Related Posts and Comments:
30.12.13 Botanic Garden: Ouroboros (more images)
15.7.13 Art in public places: Dunedin worms and wyrms #snakesinthegrass
3.1.12 Art in public places #Dunedin

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

DCC: Hospital area parking changes #cyclelanes

—

Dunedin City Council – Media Release
Parking Changes for Hospital Area

This item was published on 14 Jan 2014.

Some changes to on-street parking outside Dunedin Hospital are coming soon as part of measures to improve cyclist safety. The changes will occur in the block of Cumberland Street between Hanover and Frederick Streets and should be implemented in late January/early February.

Dunedin City Council Senior Traffic Engineer Ron Minnema says, “The objective of the changes is to reduce the risk to cyclists by reducing the number of conflicts between vehicles manoeuvring into car parks and northbound cyclists.”

The changes will also complement the wider cycle lanes. The changes involve increasing the maximum time period on the 13 pay and display parks from four hours to all day, removing the bus stop, installing no stopping lines immediately south of the entrance to the Hospital car park and construction of two extra mobility parks. That will mean there will be four mobility parks (two more than at present) and 2 P5 parks (one less than at present).

The Southern District Health Board, the NZ Transport Agency, the Automobile Association and the Otago Regional Council have been consulted about the parking changes, Mr Minnema says. The changes, which are part of short-term safety measures to improve cyclist safety in the central city, were discussed by the Council in May 2013.

Once the changes have been made, the DCC will monitor the on-street parks outside the Hospital on Great King, Hanover and Frederick Streets. The results will be discussed with the Health Board to determine whether any further changes are required on these streets.

Earlier in 2013, minor changes to parking took place at 17 sites in the central city. All these parking changes are in response to the Council in November 2012 asking the NZ Transport Agency to identify short-term measures to improve cyclist safety, as well as developing a long-term plan with the same vision.

Part of the long-term plan is a separated cycle lane proposal which involves two preferred long-term options for improving the safety of Dunedin’s one-way sections of State Highway 1. Consultation on this proposal closed on 6 December last year.

Contact Senior Traffic Engineer on 03 474 3706.

DCC Link

—

Related Posts and Comments:
5.1.14 Norman Foster: SkyCycling utopia above London railways #ThinkBig
24.12.13 Daaave’s $47 million Christmas present to Jinty. We’re paying.
4.12.13 Dunedin cycleways: Calvin Oaten greeted by DCC silence
17.11.13 Dunedin cycleways: Calvin Oaten’s alternative route
17.11.13 Cull and MacTavish… “Have you fixed the debt crisis?”
14.11.13 Cycle lane explosions and puncture kits (SPOKES grenades launch)
8.11.13 Dunedin Separated Cycle Lane Proposal [how to make a submission]
5.11.12 DCC, NZTA: Cycle lanes controversy
19.10.13 Cycle lobby games and media tilts
24.9.13 Mediocrity and lack of critical awareness at DCC [council reports]
8.7.13 Bloody $tupid cycleways and Cull’s electioneering . . . [route maps]
28.3.13 DCC DAP 2013/14: Portobello Harington Point Road Improvements
26.2.13 DCC binge spending alert: Proposed South Dunedin cycle network
22.2.13 DCC: Council meeting agenda and reports for 25 February 2013
31.1.13 Who? 2010 electioneering
21.11.12 Safe cycling -Cr Fliss Butcher

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
 

Taking to water like a duck on oil

A report on ethical investment opportunities, commissioned by Dunedin City Council, will be discussed by councillors later this month.

“This is an opportunity for us as a community to have a conversation about what we collectively feel comfortable making money from. It is important to have this conversation.” –Cr MacTavish (via ODT)

The councillor has written:
“I think drilling for hydrocarbons is unethical because of climate change. At the Council, we’re already having to factor climate change planning into decision-making, and it’s pretty obvious that it’s not the cheap option.”

Read Jinty MacTavish’s recent comments at ODT Online:
On ethics and hypocrisy… (9.1.14) and Climate change policy, cycle investments (12.1.14).

****

Link supplied.
Monday, 13 January 2014 4:06 a.m.

Cr MacTavish need never get lost again

### newsbiscuit.com Jan 7th, 2014
Politicians to replace faulty moral compass with new Ethical Sat Nav
By Ludicity
MPs are preparing for the arrival of a new piece of wearable technology that will help them navigate difficult terrain and always guide them towards the high moral ground.
The EPS, or Ethical Positioning System, operates by triangulating a person’s political standpoint via a number of morally aware ‘smart satellites’. If a politician starts to veer off course, perhaps about to break a manifesto pledge, the Sat Nav will interrupt with the message: ‘You are no longer on the agreed route, please perform a U-turn now.’
The new system replaces the old and unreliable moral compass. ‘In theory the moral compass should have worked,’ explained philosopher AC Grayling, ‘but many politicians found it confusing and were clearly unable to tell which way it was pointing. All too often they either they left it at home or held it upside down and headed off in entirely the wrong direction.’
Read more

****

Those speaking at the inaugural Oil Free Future Summit included Gareth Hughes (Green Party), Jinty MacTavish, Prof Bob Lloyd, and photo journalist John Wathen.

### ODT Online Mon, 13 Jan 2014
Flotilla to hinder drilling
By John Lewis
Oil Free Otago has established a ”rapid response” team of up to 260 people to take to the waters around Otago to hinder Anadarko Petroleum Corporation’s deep-sea drilling operations. Oil Free Otago spokeswoman Niamh O’Flynn said the team was established during the Oil Free Future Summit in Dunedin at the weekend, and hinted it may be used to block the shipping lane in Otago Harbour to stop Anadarko vessels from using Dunedin as a servicing port.
Read more

—

Related Posts and Comments:
9.4.13 Dunedin: Future service town to Shell? #realitycheck
24.9.12 Stadium Councillors back coastal oil exploration
13.4.10 Dunedin – an oil base?
18.3.10 Dunedin harbourside for oil base?
26.2.10 Latest on Dunedin’s offshore oil and gas prospects

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Images: newsbiscuit.com – Ethical Positioning System (EPS); oilfreeotago.com – OFFS poster (detail)

Dunedin (apartments) Hotel: Better ways to lipstick a pig

Dunedin Hotel proposed [screenshots from fly-by video by ARL]

Let’s “Articulate” the Dunedin waterfront, let’s sculpt and distort ideas of cheap tower design, or hey, we could use explosives. We’re not the first to think of it —the “prettying the tombstone” part.

This is late reply to the evidence to hearing from Auckland’s Jeremy Whelan of Ignite Architects, entitled Dunedin Hotel Design Direction Analysis, dated 18 March 2013, for Betterways Advisory Ltd (applicant).

Whelan presented 16 “exemplars” of “design directions” for the proposed tower at 41 Wharf Street. These outlined possible(?) cladding and modelling options —none of which were part of the actual application for resource consent. Previously, we had listened to Dunedin architect Francis Whitaker wax lyrical on the considerable merits of the slab design for an interminable three hours in submission —it would be an insult to call the pronouncements ‘evidence’. Unsurprisingly, by the time Whelan came to trot his stuff ALL had become uncomfortably strained in the Edinburgh Room despite a toothy semblance of tolerance shown by the hearing panel.

The following images are selected and scanned from photocopy evidence of Whelan’s 25-page PowerPoint presentation, thus drop-off in picture quality and sharpness. Nonetheless, you can see where he’s headed, to win the panel… (it simply wasn’t enough that Animation Research Ltd had removed the rail corridor to ‘contextualise’ the tower by rendering fake gulags up to its base).

The exemplars were presented in the serious hope that resource consent would be granted for a near 100-metre tall building that (at the time) had not been “designed” or detailed sufficiently clearly by the applicant.
Enjoy. [click to enlarge]

—

█ Betterways Advisory Ltd is a company directed by Steve Rodgers, a Dunedin solicitor. For a very short time Jing Song was appointed as a director of Betterways —her directorship started and ended (or so it appears) the same day that Wharf Street Property Ltd was incorporated.

From NZ Companies Office records:
Former Director (Betterways Advisory Ltd)
Full legal name: Jing SONG
Residential Address: 56 Old Coach Way, Rd 3, Drury 2579, New Zealand
Appointment Date: 05 Apr 2013
Ceased date: 05 Apr 2013

LMW Trust Ltd is the sole shareholder for both Betterways Advisory Ltd and Wharf Street Property Ltd. Steve Rodgers is co-director/shareholder for LMW Trust Ltd, with solicitor and vineyard owner Evan Moore. LMW Trust is a shareholder in other (wine-based) companies directed by Jing Song.

—

█ Further to Jeremy Whelan’s art of persuasion (gasp, where was the budget?) here’s a sample of manipulated images that might equally apply.

### dezeen.com 8 January 2014
Photographer Victor Enrich turns a Munich hotel upside down and inside out
A hotel in Munich is stretched, twisted, distorted and exploded in a series of 88 manipulated photographs by Spanish photographer Victor Enrich.
Enrich, who also works as a 3D architectural visualiser, based the series on one view of the Deutscher Kaiser hotel, a building he passed regularly during a two-month stay in the city. Some images show parts of the building turned on their sides, while others show sections of it duplicated or sliced away. Some shots show it curving into different shapes and some show it pulled it apart.
Describing the manipulation process, Enrich says: “What I basically do is create a 3D virtual environment out of a 2D photograph. The process involves capturing the perspective, then the geometry, then the materials and finally the lighting. The techniques I use are often described as ‘camera matching’ or ‘perspective matching’ and several 3D software packages provide functionalities that allow you to perform this.” He does a lot of the work by hand to “reach the level of detail needed to achieve high photorealism”.
Read more + Images

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Facadism: 3%, 10%, 50%, 75%, 99.9% (how much is enough) | University of Otago warps Castle Street

University of Otago OUCA Childcare Centre
541-559 Castle Street

Architects: Parker Warburton Team Architects
Structural and Fire Engineers: Stevenson Brown Ltd
Main Contractor: Amalgamated Builders Ltd (ABL)

The university is building a new childcare centre in Castle Street, opposite the historic Selwyn College, on sites formerly given to a row of timbered bay villas. The facility will provide room for 140 equivalent full-time (FTE) children – boosting childcare capacity at the university by 50%. Years ago, the houses together with others like them were mooted for demolition to provide new lecture theatres. Along came work on the Campus Master Plan to change that and what is now the decision to save the ‘appearance’ of the villas to the street – with a ‘small-person village’ tucked in behind. It’s facadism, and it’s terribly thin. The villas weren’t listed for protection in the district plan.

—

On completion, the new childcare centre will probably collect one or more NZIA Southern Architecture Awards based on ingenuity, subtle(?) mixing of ‘kiwi’ Disneyland veneer, concept, scale, well-programmed function, urban design, and finishing. After all, the university has spent $200,000 on the design and used award winning architects. But is it kosher to slice the bays off period villas and ‘reconstitute’ them by nailing onto new buildings? Not sure, will wait until the opening in March to finally pronounce.

—

In the meantime there’s no debating that scale and proportion are correct, and the design has sensitivity on many counts. Will the built linkages, with under-roofs, between buildings read correctly and convincingly to the street? Does it matter anyway, given the facility replaces buildings the university fudged and devalued over many years for temporary use? The landscaping to street and within the block will be superior. What’s not to like?

Possibly, the ‘what’s not to like’ is that others in the building design trade will try to mimic (badly) the facadist tactics – the ‘chainsaw precedent’ having been set – as they gormlessly, constructively, work to erode historic heritage values of individual buildings and townscape values within some of our better but neglected Victorian/Edwardian era residential streets. Like streets in the North Dunedin campus area where tight sections and medium building density are found; places where developers having landbanked aren’t of a mind to fully demolish. Whether this turns truly bad, like all building fashions, will depend on the number of occurrences and scale of endeavour. When you do something (was it) cutting edge, it’s the followers you should worry about.

In its favour, this ‘academic’ dalliance with facadism, chainsaw-massacre or whatever it’s called – and alright, the institutional client has a reasonably high standard of architectural design and heritage-retention – is aesthetically far superior to the ‘piss-poor’ gouges and severe ghetto-esque rebuilds now going on in former working cottage character streets, like Grange and Leith.

—

Otago Bulletin Board
Uni News: Site of new Childcare facility blessed
The new state-of-the-art facility will offer places for significantly more children than the existing centre in Great King Street, and will include a bilingual centre, landscaped external play space, dining and quiet sleep rooms, as well as non-contact and administration areas. All 11 buildings on both the Castle Street and Montgomery Avenue sides of the project will be demolished, with the exception of the period Edwardian facades of the five villas on Castle Street which will be restored. Property Services Project Manager Christian German says “The condition and arrangement of the existing buildings, as well as the need to carry out seismic strengthening, means that re-building is the most cost-effective option. However, by retaining and restoring the villa facades, the view on Castle Street will be improved without changing significantly.” The facility will provide 140 full-time equivalent (FTE) child places, including 28 nought- to five-year-olds in the bilingual centre. There will also be two nurseries and two whānau units each catering for 40 two- to five-year-olds.

*restored is a loaded word

Otago University Childcare Association
The OUCA has four new childcare centres under construction on Campus, opening April 2014. They will sit alongside Te Kaupapa ō Rōpu Tiaki Tamaiti (College Centre) 137 Union Street East. All children enrolled at the existing Nursery, Preschool and Fulltime Centres will transfer to the new centres. Link

ODT Coverage:
8.1.14 Photograph, site view (page 14). University childcare centre takes shape. Peter MacIntosh. No link available.

14.8.13 ‘Good progress’ at uni childcare facility site
The facades of period villas in Castle St were being removed for repair and restoration. These facades would be retained as part of the new development in their original positions opposite Selwyn College. Link

18.7.13 University child-care site cleared
University plans to build a $6.25 million child-care centre in Castle St are moving closer to reality as demolition work continues. Eleven buildings, in Montgomery Ave and Castle St, will be demolished to make way for the project, although the facades of five Victorian villas in Castle St will be retained. The new centre would include landscaped internal play space, as well as dining and quiet sleep rooms. Link

13.6.13 Blessing for childcare centre
The childcare centre would integrate three current centres into one. “The concept is a village for children on campus with lots of trees and natural materials.” Demolition of existing buildings on the site is scheduled to begin on June 24, and the centre is scheduled to open next March. Link

4.4.13 University plans major building projects
The only large new project on which the university has publicly committed to begin construction this year is a $6.254 million childcare centre in Castle St. The draft design for the centre was almost complete and construction was to begin in June. Link

22.12.12 New daycare centre
The university plans to build a new “state-of-the-art” childcare centre on Castle St next year. The centre would be located on Castle St opposite Selwyn College and retain the Edwardian facades of existing villas. The need for earthquake strengthening and the condition and arrangement of the existing buildings meant rebuilding was the most cost-effective option. $200,000 was spent on the design of the new centre, but the construction budget was under wraps. Once the new centre was built, the facility on Great King St would revert to accommodation or academic use. Link
Sketch of the new eight-gabled building. Montgomery Avenue elevation.
Parker Warburton

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Dunedin Hotel (apartments): Who ARE the developers?

“I’m pretty sure that Ping and Jing and the developers want some conclusions too … they don’t want to be still working through this in six months’ or a year’s time.” –Mayor Cull (ODT)

An interesting statement – any names? Who are the developers? All we heard in evidence, name-wise (not fully explained), was the source of the building plans at China (“tweaked” by some unimaginative pasty sell-out hailing from Auckland).
In the argybargy over resource consent Jing Song always came across as a naive young woman (of potential wealth) with no real idea of how she was being used by the circling sharks of Dunedin and elsewhere.
Despite fronting at hearing she certainly had no idea about the standard of information required for the application process, seemingly duped by legal advisers to play dumb, who maybe weren’t that clear either. The youthful husband never turned up.
Still, “they” might surprise us with something that is well designed and sensitively scaled —but that would cost. To be erected in Queenstown or Christchurch. Given the state of our airport and its relative disconnection with the country’s major international gateways, would it be any wonder.

Image: Jing Song, left, and Ping Cao were married at the Grand Mercure Nelson Monaco resort (Nelson Mail, 10.9.11) Story via stuff.co.nz.

How much has DCC spent on schmoozing the ‘wealthy’ Chinese?
Any New Zealand finance going in (to the ‘university hostel’)?

—

### ODT Online Tue, 7 Jan 2014
Talks on hotel bid ongoing
By Chris Morris
The fate of Dunedin’s proposed $100 million waterfront hotel hangs in the balance, but a decision on whether to proceed – or abandon the project – could be just weeks away, it has been confirmed. Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull told the Otago Daily Times all parties were working to address “complex” issues but he could offer no guarantees a way forward could be found.
Read more

To learn more, enter the term *hotel* in the search box at right.

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

George Street: Two new uglies (thanks DCC, no City Architect…)

(just DCC resource management planners with no design training, and use of the odd ‘consulting architect’ who lamely fails to press that architectural details be made “right”, lest they upset “the boys”—be they lousy small-time architects (as opposed to REAL DESIGN ARCHITECTS), architectural designers, draftsmen, builders, property developers or investors). Our kindom, for a City Architect —to compile and enforce design guidelines, and through district plan mechanisms, to require the use of registered architects by developers working in important townscape precincts like George Street, and to shove an unforgiving multidisciplinary Urban Design Panel at the buggers.

No. 1 —Apartments, 581 George Street
We’re all familiar with Farry’s Motel, now Farry’s Motel Apartments at 575 George Street. The complex used to look out on a green area, and vehicle parking with mature trees and shrubbery at 581.

DCC Webmap 575-581 George Street

Malcolm Farry recently sold the properties at 575 and 581 to Ethel Limited, a family company led by Frank Cazemier who has worked for Cutlers as a “University Investment Sales Specialist”. A cursory check of directorships at the NZ Companies Office website shows Cazemier is “one of the boys”. Pity he knows next to nothing about contextual commercial residential design, architectural bulk and location, facade modulation, sun angles, or landscape architecture —such that can’t be solved by ready trees.

Farry’s Motel Apartments now looks out on a poorly designed featureless boundary fence, and the sobering double block of apartments ‘next door’ at 581. The block furthest from the street (walls of light blue), when seen from driveways to either side, reveals a ‘long elevation’ running parallel to George Street that resembles a jerry-built, badly-windowed reclad of a tired country hall (the low, horizontally-orientated fenestration allows for another floor of rooms above, in the roofspace).

The marketing statement for Farry’s Motel Apartments at 575 still says:
“Set alongside a large grassed area that provides a playground and picnic spots, we are one of the most centrally located Dunedin motels, offering an absolutely superb main street position.”

This is no longer the case.
The very likely expensive exercise in ‘infill design’ (intensification/ densification…) issued from the drawing board of Bill Henderson, Architect of (fuck-a-daisy)WANAKA —someone who appears to work at the ‘cheap-looking’ end of the market, or at least has diminished design flare, poor knowledge of scale detail and proportion, and lack of expertise in three-dimensional architectural composition. As a result, and while meeting planning criteria for the zone, the motels/apartments at 575 and 581 now look about fit for student stays only, or at a pinch, the G&T parents of capping graduands. No fear, the new apartments will be mouth-wateringly expensive to rent. The student ghetto continues, behind the tacky dress-up to George Street.

Incidently, Farry’s operates a charge back system with the former Farry-owned Cargill’s Hotel, now Quality Hotel Cargills at 686 George Street.

****

No. 2 —Apartments, 2 St David Street, cnr George Street
There used to be a nice old single-storey bungalow with fine curving bay windows and a palm tree on this site, next to Quality Hotel Cargills. Only the palm tree remains. The bungalow became victim to an excavator. It isn’t clear if the windows and internal period joinery (if still present) were dismantled for re-use.

The site is now owned by Newmarket Investments Limited and has been recently developed for apartments. The company directors are Clive Hewitson and wife Wendy May Hewitson. Clive Hewitson’s profile at LinkedIn says: “Director – Otago & Southland, New Zealand | Real Estate”. Hewitson is another of the “boys”, as records at the NZ Companies Office show. Some link up in the past with companies of which Frank Cazemier (mentioned above) has also been a director.

The apartment complex is faced, not too convincingly, in ‘red brick’ – at first glance, no-one can tell if it’s real brick facing or veneer! Questionable are the lack of reveals, and the scale and position of openings (doors and windows) in the street elevations; with tweaking to proportions and placements this could have solved. The glazing bars are wrong. Small frosted bathroom and toilet windows to the street (on the public face of your building) are a No-no. The shallowness of the gables to the street elevations, also grates in perspective. The grey wooden pickets added to the base of the original garden fence are odd. The whole is unnecessarily dreary. Taxi drivers hate it. The pencil cypresses may provide a foil, once mature (the building really needs one hell of a lot of ivy). Have to admit, designing anything between Quality Hotel Cargills and Econo Lodge Alcala is a free-for-all, BUT why not try…

No registered architect. It shows. The developer used RJ Oliver Architectural Design, Mosgiel – spot the spelling mistake!

Why didn’t Quality Hotel Cargills buy 2 St David Street to take control of the prominent corner to George Street? We note Dunedin architect Hamish Wixon is a director/shareholder of 678 George Street Limited and Cargills Hotel Limited. Perhaps we can look forward to developments at the tired Cargills…

****

Strategic Site: 715 George Street, cnr Regent Road
Can we possibly imagine what will get built on the site of the former BP 2go Regent service station? Another horror story? Another ‘architectual’ (sic) bodice-ripper? 715 is owned by Northfield Property and Investment Company Limited. The sole director is Bryan Howard Usher of Dunedin.

DCC Webmap – 715 George Street (context)

—

Post and building images by Elizabeth Kerr

DCC: New Year revelation on staff bonuses

Keep the non-surprises coming, CEO Sue Bidrose – we know there are many more to hand, your work is not yet done. Thanks to Paul Orders for chopping this.

Hmmm, the sacked former CFO Athol Stephens’ name pops up again. Who are the other ‘council managers’ that raided the pot to feather their staff? And how many managers is the city council still lumbered with? Ms Bidrose, you need LESS of them and no soft wicket for those that need to remain. STOP all make-work schemes.

—

### ODT Online Mon, 6 Jan 2014
Staff bonuses almost history, council says
By Chris Morris
The Dunedin City Council has moved to ”severely curtail” the payment of cash bonuses to staff, amid concerns payments and gifts worth more than $2 million had been distributed unfairly, it has been confirmed. Council chief executive Dr Sue Bidrose told the Otago Daily Times the council had been moving away from the system of cash and non-cash bonuses for more than a year.
Read more

Lingering issue: “…staff deemed to be “consistent, long-term, high-level performers” could earn pay increases to 102.5% or 105% of the normal remuneration for their roles”.

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: Athol Stephens re-imaged by Whatifdunedin

Norman Foster: SkyCycling utopia above London railways #ThinkBig

Or how to put DCC and NZTA to shame for their dangerous, low-design segregated cycle lane solution at Dunners. See the latest DCC / NZTA report, Summary of Cycle Safety Options Made Public, at Comments.

Foster SkyCycle [click to enlarge]

So Big Norm’s a cyclist, and when he gets a wee bit of work in New York City from time to time he likes to travel The High Line [Wikipedia]. But then. He had a gazumping thought about London congestion.

Foster is the only architect on Britain’s rich list.

—

### dezeen.com 2 January 2014
Norman Foster promotes “cycling utopia” above London’s railways
News: British architect Norman Foster has unveiled a concept to build a network of elevated pathways above London’s railways to create safe car-free cycling routes, following 14 cyclist deaths on the city’s streets in 2013.
Entitled SkyCycle, the proposal by architects Foster + Partners, landscape architects Exterior Architecture and transport consultant Space Syntax is for a “cycling utopia” of approximately 220 kilometres of dedicated cycle lanes, following the routes of existing train lines.
Over 200 entrance points would be dotted across the UK capital to provide access to ten different cycle paths. Each route would accommodate up to 12,000 cyclists per hour and could improve journey times across the city by up to half an hour.
“SkyCycle is a lateral approach to finding space in a congested city,” said Foster, who is both a regular cyclist and the president of Britain’s National Byway Trust. “By using the corridors above the suburban railways, we could create a world-class network of safe, car free cycle routes that are ideally located for commuters.”
If approved, the routes could be in place within 20 years, offering relief to a transport network that is already at capacity and will need to contend with 12 percent population growth over the next decade.
“To improve the quality of life for all in London and to encourage a new generation of cyclists, we have to make it safe. However, the greatest barrier to segregating cars and cyclists is the physical constraint of London’s streets, where space is already at a premium.”
According to the designers, construction of elevated decks would be considerably cheaper than building new roads and tunnels.
Read more

****

### dezeen.com 28 November 2013
Sandwichbike flat-pack wooden bicycle by PedalFactory goes into production
A flat-pack wooden bicycle that can be assembled in less than an hour has gone into production. PedalFactory claims the Sandwichbike can be unpacked and put together in just 45 minutes. The single-speed bike is constructed from 19 parts that are packaged and delivered in a box along with the tools required to assemble it. The Sandwichbike was launched in Amsterdam on Sunday 1 December 2013. This innovative wooden bicycle is now being shipped.
Read more + images/slide show

“If you can make a sandwich, you can make a Sandwichbike.”

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Images via dezeen.com

Otago Museum: H D Skinner Annex + returning exhibition!

### ODT Online Sat, 4 Jan 2014
Museum to keep annex open all year
By John Gibb
Otago Museum is planning to keep its recently redeveloped H D Skinner Annex open to the public throughout the year, to allow increased community use. The recent ‘Heritage Lost and Found: Our Changing Cityscape‘ exhibition, displayed in the Postmaster Gallery at the annex, had been “very well received” by the community. This show, which was developed with the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, would now be reinstalled, and, in response to “public demand”, would return to public display from March. Read more

● Otago Museum H D Skinner Annex (building background and facilities)

—

Comment at ODT Online:

Lost and found
Submitted by ej kerr on Sat, 04/01/2014 – 11:03am.

The significance of the recently closed exhibition for local residents and city visitors was perhaps, at the time, under-appreciated by the exhibiting parties. Dunedin City has formerly lacked such an insightful, rational and easily grasped interactive exhibition on the historical layers of the built environment – signposting the form and change to our cultural heritage landscape and urban context, for better or worse since early days.

This is a planned city (thank you, surveyor Charles Kettle) – we should always honour Dunedin’s uniqueness and intricate textures representatively and graphically; know the ‘before and afters’, the losses, additions and discoveries; be able to quickly recount how the cityscape has evolved, with just these type visual aids and new evolving IT. ‘Heritage Lost and Found’ exactly captures the spirit of where we are!

It’s great news the exhibition is set to continue – in a broader sense, the exhibition is something to build on and develop into the future as a permanent visitor display worthy of any sensitive location for public education. It can take special refreshes and add-ons as research into the merits and quirks of the architecture (our collective legacy) continues through the work of New Zealand Historic Places Trust, Dunedin City Council, Otago Museum, related city archives and collections, archaeologists, building owners, researchers, and professional architectural historians of the calibre of Peter Entwisle and David Murray. The combined effort, its coordination, contains so much power, potential and publishing opportunity. Boggles the mind, then there’s the overwhelming ‘pasture’ for design excellence to cover the brief…
[ends]

****

Former Dunedin North Post Office before work started, photo by Benchill via Wikimedia Commons. (below) Proposed building redevelopment rendered by McCoy and Wixon Architects, 2012.

****

Links to earlier stories copied from another thread:

● ODT 11.7.13 Museum annex set for opening [after delays]
The $1.6 million redevelopment of the former Dunedin North post office as an Otago Museum exhibition area is nearing completion, and the first display is expected to open next month. Titled ‘Heritage Lost and Found: Our Changing Cityscape’, the first exhibition to be displayed at the annexe was developed in partnership with the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. The display would showcase “important aspects of Dunedin’s built heritage that have been demolished or redeveloped”.

● ODT 7.7.13 Work near end on old Post Office
● ODT 18.5.13 Museum’s ‘old post office’ annex nearly ready

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image – opening graphic, view from Museum reserve by Whatifdunedin

DCC: Jaunt to USA, explain

Dunedin, March 2010. Benchill (Wikimedia Commons).

### ODT Online Fri, 3 Jan 2014
Streetlight ideas from US trip
By Debbie Porteous
Seeing the bright lights of some major American cities has given the man responsible for a street lighting revolution set for Dunedin some solid ideas. Dunedin city council roading maintenance engineer Peter Standring went to the United States last year to look at different technologies and visit cities that have started updating their street lighting.
Read more

Puzzled. The news story says Peter Standring went to USA.
But lower down, it says (our emphasis):

“Los Angeles was in many ways the world leader in the procurement, installation and development of LED technology, and the group was “very lucky” to have had one and a-half hours of Mr Ebrahimian’s time, Mr Standring said.”

What group? A DCC group? (or a USA group he tagged along with?) What have we paid for? A 2013 trip for one person to Los Angeles, Durham, Racine, Chicago, Phoenix and San Francisco —or a trip for a group of staff and their wives?
Clarification, please.

****

[via Upstart Incubator (@UpstartDunedin) who tweeted at 9:29 AM on Tue, Dec 31, 2013]

### mckinsey.com September 2013
How to make a city great
By 2030, 60 percent of the world’s population will live in cities. That could mean great things for economic growth — if the cities handle their expansion wisely. Here’s how.

What makes a great city? It is a pressing question because by 2030, 5 billion people — 60 percent of the world’s population — will live in cities, compared with 3.6 billion today, turbocharging the world’s economic growth. Leaders in developing nations must cope with urbanisation on an unprecedented scale, while those in developed ones wrestle with aging infrastructures and stretched budgets. All are fighting to secure or maintain the competitiveness of their cities and the livelihoods of the people who live in them. And all are aware of the environmental legacy they will leave if they fail to find more sustainable, resource-efficient ways of managing these cities.

Explore six diverse initiatives aimed at making cities great places to live and work.

To understand the core processes and benchmarks that can transform cities into superior places to live and work, McKinsey developed and analysed a comprehensive database of urban economic, social, and environmental performance indicators. The research included interviewing 30 mayors and other leaders in city governments on four continents and synthesizing the findings from more than 80 case studies that sought to understand what city leaders did to improve processes and services from urban planning to financial management and social housing.

The result is How to make a city great (PDF, 2.1MB), a new report arguing that leaders who make important strides in improving their cities do three things really well:

█ They achieve smart growth. Smart growth identifies and nurtures the very best opportunities for growth, plans ways to cope with its demands, integrates environmental thinking, and ensures that all citizens enjoy a city’s prosperity. Good city leaders also think about regional growth because as a metropolis expands, they will need the cooperation of surrounding municipalities and regional service providers. Integrating the environment into economic decision making is vital to smart growth: cities must invest in infrastructure that reduces emissions, waste production, and water use, as well as in building high-density communities.

█ They do more with less. Great cities secure all revenues due, explore investment partnerships, embrace technology, make organisational changes that eliminate overlapping roles, and manage expenses. Successful city leaders have also learned that, if designed and executed well, private–public partnerships can be an essential element of smart growth, delivering lower-cost, higher-quality infrastructure and services.

█ They win support for change. Change is not easy, and its momentum can even attract opposition. Successful city leaders build a high-performing team of civil servants, create a working environment where all employees are accountable for their actions, and take every opportunity to forge a stakeholder consensus with the local population and business community. They take steps to recruit and retain top talent, emphasise collaboration, and train civil servants in the use of technology.

Mayors are only too aware that their tenure will be limited. But if longer-term plans are articulated — and gain popular support because of short-term successes — leaders can start a virtuous cycle that sustains and encourages a great urban environment.
Link to source

● McKinsey&Company The material on this page draws on the research and experience of McKinsey consultants and other sources. To learn more about their expertise, visit the Infrastructure Practice, Public Sector Practice, Sustainability & Resource Productivity Practice.

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: commons.wikimedia.org – Central city view of Dunedin, New Zealand, at night from Signal Hill lookout. The dark horizontal band above the centre of the photo is the Town Belt. Some landmarks including First Church of Otago and the Dunedin Railway Station are visible near the centre. Photo by Benchill, 9 March 2010.