For the groupies…..
Dunedin City council – Media Release
Help Shape the Future of Dunedin’s CBD
This item was published on 26 Sep 2014
Do you have a vision for the future of Dunedin’s central business district?
Whether you’re a retailer, resident or property owner, you are welcome to attend a free public workshop next week focusing on the future look and feel of the CBD. This discussion will build on feedback from earlier workshops on the Central City Plan (2011), the Warehouse Precinct Revitalisation Plan (2012) and Princes Street (2014).
The goal of the workshops is to hear people’s ideas and aspirations for the rest of the CBD, from the Octagon to the tertiary precinct, including George Street, lower Stuart Street and the surrounding streets.
These workshops and other comments received will feed into [WTH] transportation and amenity improvement projects in this area over the next decade.
[Oh no, not Mr Mentz AGAIN] Next week’s interactive workshop, which will be led by Kobus Mentz of Urbanism +, will be held on Thursday 2 October, 6pm to 8pm, at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.
The DCC will also be working with the Otago Regional Council to look at the future location of a central city public transport hub. Feedback from the workshop will also link in with consultation on the central city cycle network.
█ [Love the extent of warning, all about bulldozing pre-envisioned DCC plans through via “Insider-Stakeholders”] Stakeholders in the area have been invited to a workshop on 1 October.
█ People [for rubber stamp duty] wishing to attend the public workshop on 2 October need to RSVP to centralcityplan @ dcc.govt.nz by Tuesday.
█ If you cannot attend the workshop, you can email your ideas and priorities for the future of the CBD to centralcityplan @ dcc.govt.nz [because DCC’s good at stealing your complementary ideas to push staff advancement and salaries, not to mention extending Mayor Daaave’s political agenda]
Contact DCC on 477 4000
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Related Posts and Comments:
24.9.14 Dunedin old boys, councillors & staff collude on 5-star accommodation
● 5.8.14 DCC staff-led CBD projects that impact ratepayers…
4.8.14 Cr Wilson’s integrity ‘in tatters’
23.6.14 DCC Annual Plan 2014/15 + Rugby and Rates
● 22.6.14 Vogel Street Heritage Precinct (TH13)
22.5.14 DCC Transportation Planning —ANOTHER consultation disaster
7.5.14 DCC Draft Annual Plan 2014/15 hearings
6.5.14 Roading network screwed by council staff
● 30.4.14 Octagon mud
21.4.14 Dunedin economic development strategy — low flying Year 1
1.4.14 HOTEL Town Hall… Daaave’s pals from… [April Fool’s?]
14.1.14 DCC: Hospital area parking changes #cyclelanes
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
11.11.13 DCC: Councillors delegated street furniture decisions to staff
8.11.13 Dunedin Separated Cycle Lane Proposal
5.11.13 DCC, NZTA: Cycle lanes controversy
24.9.13 Mediocrity and lack of critical awareness at DCC
4.9.13 Draft Dunedin City Transport Strategy
8.3.13 Stupid bid for two-way highway ditched for now #DCC
31.10.12 Cull’s council takes business away from retailers
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
*Image: DCC Webmap – Inner city Dunedin
What if? Dunedin... 
Only one big question arises in my mind. “Where’s the money coming from?” With a group consolidated debt of around ($620 million) and a DCC (including stadium) core debt of around ($370m) why is this continuing drive to bankrupt the city still being promoted. Surely, a serious effort to address this monumental debt situation should be the first duty of the mayor and council. Seems not.
### OD Online Mon, 29 Sep 2014
Public views sought in reshaping city
By Chris Morris
A facelift scheduled for inner-city Dunedin […] The council is planning to turn its attention to the future shape of the central business district at two public workshops to be held in Dunedin this week.
The workshops would gauge the public’s appetite for change – and their views on what shape it should take – over the next decade, before the council’s long-term plan budget hearings early next year.
Read more
Flocks of tuis.
Never believe the old line ‘the council was yet to identify specific projects or detailed plans’. Given the timeline for the Long-term Council Community Plan (LTCCP) or LTP as now referred to, you have to know that DCC is working backwards from predetermined goals that it has set. It can’t be anything else. The Acting team leader for urban design knows this that’s why the DCC is continuing to pay Kobus Mentz the Auckland-based urban design consultant to further DCC plans (he is not independent), at great cost to ratepayers, I’m sure. Local issues (if any, other than DCC meddling in the city’s business economy) need local solutions but try telling DCC that. The whole thing is a ballsed-up mess and we have one person in particular to thank, that person has NO urban design qualifications or professional accreditation whatsoever.
Build and they will come.
Council Planners run enough workshops that they could probably justify re-occupying Hillside. Now that would be a place to put them. Kobus Mentz (is that a real name?) could probably build up something of merit. The only brief should be that it is ‘self funding’. Now that would be a departure from the norm. As Elizabeth suggests, it could be a ‘working backwards programme’, where, just like the infamous Mot Mot bird, which flew ever backwards looking at last year’s set of figures, until it finally disappeared up its own fundamental orifice. Now that would be a programme I could really warm to.
I like the bit where council want to help lift the city’s struggling retail sector. Ever since amalgamation the city has gone out of its way to destroy the once thriving rural sector, and have given lip service to the rural wards, where the elected representation on hearing committees have unfortunately sided with the destruction, and appear now to be supporting more hand-outs for the so-called struggling retail sector.
The big cry at the last government elections was about the loss of our rural land to foreigners. Unfortunately, the biggest loss of Dunedin’s rural land has been at the hand of the city council. Since amalgamation 76% of our high class soils, that the horticulture and vegetable growing sector rely on have disappeared from the city’s soil maps, never to be seen again. At least the overseas buyers of our rural land cannot take it away or make it disappear, but the Dunedin City Council has made it disappear, and exported the vegetable growing, horticulture, employment opportunities up to the Canterbury region and elsewhere.
Brian, thanks for stating clearly the situation with high class soils under the DCC resource management regime. In this regard the Council’s incompetence is off the scale of the horrific.
All that local ‘Real Estate’ (property speculation) and the DCC (endless blunders) have achieved [helped by NZ’s free trade agreements] is the decimation and loss of vast numbers of locally-owned shops in favour of franchise stores, many of them Australian owned and dull as ditch water – with product sourced from slave China, India, Bangladesh and the like. #DunedinCargoCult
It didn’t have to be a sign of the times.
### dunedintv.co.nz October 2, 2014 – 5:38pm
Face of Dunedin’s CBD may be about to change
The face of Dunedin’s central business district may be about to change. The Dunedin City Council is looking at ways to improve the CBD over the next decade. It wants to know how residents feel, and is seeking candid feedback.
Video
He says: “While the Council has a financial strategy limiting rates increases to 3%, we are facing reducing dividend streams from our Council companies, probable higher requirements to get the Forsyth Barr Stadium on to a sustainable (there’s that word) footing, greater government regulatory requirements and on going Council reviews. These place considerable demands on resources.
We also need to continue to implement our key strategies. For instance, the Economic Development Strategy aimed at job and business creation, the cycleway network addressing safety and transport options, debt reduction and heritage building enhancement.
Our strategic framework is the interconnected road map to the future of our city. Without it Dunedin goes backwards. So savings will be made, tough choices taken and development momentum maintained at the same time.
The 2015 budget will be a delicate balancing act.”
Does he read that stuff? Indeed, did ‘HE’ write it or some muppet in the PR department? A real ‘Churchillian’ rally to the flag entreaty. Nowhere does he address the solution to the main points of the strategies. Are there any real solutions? I don’t know. But I will make some guesses. As I see it, three things are possible.
First, and ideally, there is a massive rush of blood to the head and Dave and all councillors do the right thing and call a halt on all plans, projects and lock the cheque book in the top drawer till future finances allow it to come out again. ‘Fugetaboutit’ it is not in his genome to know anything about prudence.
Second, there will be a massive shift in the rates quotient, on the plea of: ‘jeez’ times have got really tough, and the business cycle has turned against DCHL’s enterprises and the dividend stream is going to be much less than expected. So, it’s shoulders to the wheel and all must do their bit for the good of the city. We must not let it go backwards. Not a hint of reducing the department’s demands and dreams.
Third, a massive change of plan on the debt reduction front. It currently sits north of ($610 million) and we know that the city entered into a ‘multi note facility’ up to but not exceeding ($850 million). So there is around $240 million of freeboard available. Just a silent, unobtrusive drift upwards could be justified, again to tide us over till better times return.
Realistically, there is not one major programme which could not be deferred till the ship is brought back into balance. “Without it Dunedin goes backwards.” News for you Dave, Dunedin is going backwards now!, and all your nonsense is accelerating the process.
“STOP!” You already are stuck with the one big “Tar Baby”, in the FB Stadium. If you think you can get that onto a ‘sustainable’ (that word again) footing without pouring vast additional capital into it then you are dreaming. Patronage is the proof in the pudding. It never has reached anything like a feasible level, and is actually in decline at the principal activity, rugby. It is being intravenously dripped to the maximum by around $8 million pa by Aurora now, and we are served notice that this could be in jeopardy due to DCHL’s situation. You have already upped the ratepayers’ input to $2m pa to supposedly shorten the payback period. The rent to DVL is heavily subsidised due to DVML’s inability to generate enough to pay out of revenue. If you look at the DVL reports it is treading water furiously. It has reduced its stadium debt from $146.6 million over four years to $138.586 million, and at the same time brought forward a ($13.656m) deficit. To me that looks like $5.642m backwards.That is notwithstanding capital call ups of the $2 million from the shareholder for the attempt to shorten the loan period. The directors of DVL have comfort in the knowledge that when DVL was established it was capitalised on the basis of 245,000,000 $1 shares, of which to date only 79,688,931 have been called and fully paid up. So you can see that 165,311,069 shares are still available to be called. Dave, you just don’t seem to realise the predicament which the ratepayers (shareholders) are in. That you believe that the FB Stadium can ever crawl out of the financial swamp is tantamount to your understanding of the position.
So, I wonder just how many good folk will be taken in by your ‘glib’ summary as outlined in the FYI bulletin? My guess, not many.
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{Image and link added. -Eds}
WTF does the word “sustainability” mean in the context of anything relating to the Fubar Stadium?
Is “sustainability” the current fluffy-kitten word you add to anything, to engender warm fluffy feelings in the reader?
I think it’s time “sustainability” joined the Beware! words, along with nazi and references to Hitler – you know, Godwin’s law being that in any argument that’s not literally about nazis and Hitler, the first person to bring up nazi and Hitler comparisons has automatically lost the argument. I think it’s time “sustainability” raised warning signals about pointless feelgood actions or worse, attempts to suggest dumb/harmful schemes are in fact beneficial to the wider community and will save the planet.
Now back to the Fubar, where’s the planet-saving aspect, Daaaave?
I think sustainability here means pumping more capital out of the city’s companies to continue to pretend that DVML is breaking even.
What it should mean is that DVML makes more money from its operations than it spends
Straight out of Agenda 21 of the U.N. Rio Conference of 1992
vis:-
‘The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs’ Division for Sustainable Development monitors and evaluates progress, nation by nation, towards the adoption of Agenda 21, and makes these reports available to the public on its website.’
Dave and Jinty’s ‘bible’
check with Calvin — but be gentle.
Just not possible, Mike. DVML is Daaave’s Land of the Dodo.
Question: Are the retiring directors a case of ‘rats heading for the hawser pipes’ or the ‘bristles’ of Sue Bidrose’s new broom? Whatever, it seems fortuitous.
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{Refer to new post. -Eds}
Question: How many engineers does it require to engage an outside company to check for potholes in Dunedin? Answer: One, it seems.
(Eds – not sure where the daily April Fool’s joke from the DCCODT press machine should go but it deserves some attention. It’s a story fill of holes and the absence of Oddity puns is suspicious.)
Perhaps you’re referring to this: http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/318205/van-scrutinising-roads-danger
Anon: Right! Just one. That one was Mr Minnema, “oo ‘as found a better ‘ole ‘an is gettin’ to it.”
### dunedintv.co.nz October 8, 2014 – 6:59pm
Word on the Street
Dunedin City Council staff are consulting the public about making changes to the city centre. The council wants upgrades of the CBD included in its next long-term plan. So with that in mind, our word on the street team sought out people’s thoughts on whether the CBD should be redeveloped.
Video
Upgrades on the CBD, we can get an idea of the DCC changes to the CBD by wandering down to South Dunedin. Here they stuffed parking, annoyed business owners stuck curbing where it should not be and generally used up budgeted funds to ensure retaining their budgets.
Advice for the DCC, GET OUT OF THE WAY OF BUSINESS? You don’t know what you are doing, you invest stupidly in property, including Wall Street and don’t get me started on Luggate, Jacks Point and Noble-
You can’t even count cars!
GET OUT of THE WAY.
Build new drains, clean mudtanks, sack the traffic light department and
GET OUT OF THE WAY OF BUSINESS.
Hear hear, Gurglars.
So succinct.
WHO is taking WHO for a ride on OUR RATES FUNDS
DCC Urban Design and Team ?!
via Long Term Plan rip off
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Group aims to revitalise “tired and dead” city centre….
Fri, 13 May 2016
ODT: CBD revitalisation group launched
Dunedin’s heart is in for a jump-start after entrepreneurs, business owners and city officials gathered at Meridian mall last night, keen to hear a proposal for a revitalised CBD. About 100 people heard retail expert and First Retail Group Ltd managing director Chris Wilkinson speak at the launch of the Heart of Dunedin group.
Hype goes for it at ODT Online: Look to Christchurch for clues Fri, 13 May 2016
(in reply to story on launch of Dunedin CBD revitalisation group)
South Dunedin misses out on CORE INFRASTRUCTURE SPEND due to CBD pet project and another Unnecessary staff appointment….
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07/06/2016 Planning and Regulatory Committee
View HTML | Agenda PDF (562.1KB)
Go to Item 6 (pages 13-20)
Planning and Regulatory Non-Financial Activity Report for the Quarter Ended 30 March 2016
[excerpts]
Major Initiatives
18. Central City Plan – A confirmed Central City Plan project management structure is in place, allowing for the planning and consultation phase to move ahead once a programme manager is appointed. Council approved a revised commencement date for implementation of physical works and a budget for the programme manager during the Annual Plan deliberations to align with this new project management structure.
Next Steps
24. Central City Plan physical upgrade works will continue in the Warehouse Precinct, including a tender for amenity works in Jetty Street. Works in Bond Street and the area between Rattray Street and Liverpool Street are in planning and will be consulted on in mid-2016. Relationship building, information gathering, research, and consultation will be the focus for the Central City team to replicate the positive and collaborative outcomes achieved in the Warehouse Precinct.