Design alternatives to (pre-selected) bridge not canvassed by DCC

GOODBYE to Rattray St VIEW Shaft from Queens Gardens to the waterside.

HELLO to other serious impediments to unique and very significant harbourside cultural heritage and landscape values at the planned city.

Here is another DCC-inspired critically dead PLONK OBJECT.
An overhead rail bridge. Who gains.

—

DCC files: Harbourside connector Rattray Fryatt Streets [click to enlarge]

—

It looks innocuous, nothing to scare the horses. A simple sling over the tracks at an estimated a cost of “about $3 million”.

What’s the fuss? Ahhh well.
The history of political deception through use of loose architectural sketches is tied (here as anywhere) to DCC departmental reports and estimates that hardly ever approximate REAL cost. Multiply by two.

Then the idea that the “hotel” is back on the drawing boards, if not a screw-us invitation to Asian investment for the south side.

By all means let’s escalate this (an idea) – the tame little cheapie bridge (pictured above, significantly downplayed structurally as a pencil mark) is another potential rort in the grand family of Council rorts that includes the Stadium*, Centre for High Performance Sport*, Carisbrook*, Dunedin Town Hall Redevelopment*, Citifleet*, City Forests*, Delta investments (severally)*, Cycle Network et al, and very probably the proposed Mosgiel pool if it gains traction for Taieri property speculators. For each, an independent forensic audit isn’t out of the question – for ratepayer ‘information’ that could depose the Council in favour of a Commissioner, presupposing later redress at Court. Visit resort to the *Crimes Act. Now, there’s a ‘visitor strategy’ for Dunedin !!

Meekly, more circumspectly (after all, it was just an idea, a stretch), those of us trained in architectural rendering and graphics as well as contemporary design philosophy of the marketplace know the tricks intimately; we’re not above exploiting them for a quick buck and a further string of new jobs by secret handshake.

Lucky for some, each deal at Dunedin (with links to Queenstown and Auckland if via Christchurch lawyers and accountants) can be sown up by a very small number of predatory boys. The same list we’ve had on our backburner books tracing the Stadium debacle —beginning to rise apparent at the ODT front page of Friday, 22 May 2015. An intriguing warning shot.

—

But is this right ? Has Dunedin City Council been wowed by just one bridge proposal ? Has DCC in the first place only ever been looking for a bridge —not seeking opportunities for alternatives, such as a designer underpass or an immediately legible automatically controlled crossing at grade, for light vehicle transit as well (shared roads) ?

It’s pretty poor and conflicting if Dunedin City councillors and senior council management have indeed sold out (under a red-carpeted table) to a lone solicited vision of an overhead bridge UNTESTED BY PROFESSIONAL COMPETITION – another signature WHITE model, to augment those other visions in WHITE for ORC sites at the Steamer Basin —nicely, satisfyingly calculated by that little list of club players.

It’s not hard to imagine that this mere slip of a concrete and steel flyover, is an “enlightenment” carrying the City re-brand. A cause célèbre for ego-fired DCC infidels and speculator man-pals. The very people who can’t bear to endure sage, conservative, long-term economic modelling for Dunedin, taking the city and region through 10 to 50 years of solid management to ensure business diversity and job creation. No, they prefer ad hoc spurts and short-term squander plans (how manly, even when couched as the soft-illustrated 2011 Central City Plan FFS).

Where, for this crossing, is the city council’s reasonably time-lined, broadly advertised, professional design competition with clearly expressed intent to utilise open tendering methods for architectural design, engineering and construction ??

TO SAVE US FROM COI’S AND RORTS.

****

The Otago Daily Times has learned the bridge is among only a few New Zealand projects vying for the next allocation from the Urban Cycleway Fund.

### ODT Online Thu, 28 May 2015
Bridge on funding short list
By Chris Morris
A multimillion-dollar bridge linking Dunedin’s inner city and waterfront has been short-listed for Government funds. […] An announcement is expected next month, and, if successful, the bridge could be considered for construction over the next three years.
Read more

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

amalgamation, Anyone?

Would you trust your own mother with the information that Dunedin City Council (DCC) is fully debt laden, that is, stony broke? You should.

Also, tell her DCC has no insurance for infrastructure assets, which badly need upgrade and replacement. Prettily, DCC has a new stadium that’s bleeding millions of dollars annually and it will continue to do so for years and years and years. She’ll want to know that each DCC ratepayer is now carrying five to six times the debt burden of the average New Zealand ratepayer.

The list goes on. She’ll love you for it.

Or would you hide this from her and pretend a forensic audit of the Council books wasn’t needed – so to foster happy collaborations (comings together) with ‘super’ fellow cities, as if Dunedin was level-pegging?

Dear god, your Dunedin ratepayer base is around 53,000. A high proportion of the population is low-waged and or receiving some sort of benefit assistance. The majority of citizens live in ‘old, cold and costly’ houses. Fatally, your Council keeps borrowing like there’s no tomorrow.

Definitely grounds for inter-city collaboration and blending there. If other cities want to share our deep impoverishment due to Council’s continuing lack of fiduciary responsibility, roll on up. Ignore our weaknesses and transgressions, love your mother and the useless council despots.

—

Register to read D Scene online at
http://fairfaxmedia.newspaperdirect.com/

### D Scene 30-11-11 (page 5)
Add it up
Dunedin City Council Economic Development Unit and Corporate Policy department is working on the first draft of a central government project to compare the economies of 6 core NZ cities. Due for completion in early December, the project analyses economic and social information about the cities, highlighting strengths and areas for potential collaboration between them. The project is being led by the Ministry for Economic Development and Local Government New Zealand. #bookmark

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Retrofitting commercial buildings

The process is starting in Dunedin’s CBD…

—

### idealog.co.nz 2 November 2011 at 10:12 am
Sustain
Why the retrofit market is the key to green growth
By Deirdre Robert
There are any number of ways to stimulate the green job market, but the World Economic Forum reckons investing in energy efficient upgrades for existing commercial buildings is a sure fire approach. It’s released a report on the subject entitled, A Profitable and Resource Efficient Future: Catalysing Retrofit Finance and Investing in Commercial Real Estate.

On a visit to New Zealand in March this year, “environment capitalist” Anthony Malkin, of New York City and Empire State Building fame, offered some advice to John Key. Malkin maintained that dollars spent on building retrofits have a payback that, when seen in terms of local employment and benefits, arguably outweigh investment in new energy creation projects. A $200 million wind farm, for example, requires technology to be imported and the taxpayer dollar goes offshore.
Read more

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr