Hotel We LIKE: Distinction Dunedin Hotel at former CPO

Reopening the former Chief Post Office building “marks a significant milestone for the restoration project, with more tenants, a three-level car park building and, eventually, the 120-apartment four-star-plus Distinction Dunedin Hotel, all to follow”. (ODT)

Dunedin Chief Post Office (1930s)

### ODT Online Tue, 25 Mar 2014
Office workers light up CPO
By Chris Morris
The return today of a commercial tenant to Dunedin’s former chief post office building for the first time in more than 15 years marks a significant milestone in the restoration project. About 145 staff from Silver Fern Farms are expected to start work in their new headquarters – occupying the first two floors of the partially-restored building – this morning. It was the first time the building had been home to a permanent tenant since closing its doors in 1997, building owner Geoff Thomson, of Distinction Hotels, said.
Read more

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Dogged controversy.
Submissions in opposition to the proposed waterfront tower hotel at 41 Wharf Street (LUC 2012-212) make frequent mention of a preference to see the old Chief Post Office restored and in use as a city hotel in The Exchange.
Dull criticism from the anti-heritage brigade has often been cast at the old building’s owner for lack of speed in making the redevelopment happen.
Geoff Thomson, a canny and diligent man, has proceeded with the retrofit of this very large government architect-designed building at the pace he can afford in the up-down market he faces. Geoff Thomson deserves significant praise for his passion and perseverance in seeing the project through as well as attending to quality tenanting and leases.

[history and significance]
█ Heritage New Zealand (HNZ) registration report: List No. 2145 (Category II)

Photo: Gerard O’Brien – Reroof, May 2011

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Related Posts and Comments:
22.6.13 Dunedin’s former Chief Post Office
5.3.11 Former Chief Post Office, Dunedin – magazine feature…
14.8.2010 No surprises with former CPO redevelopment
12.5.10 DScene – Geoff Thomson buys back former CPO
11.5.10 DCC Media Release – Chief Post Office
16.3.10 Planning the future of Dunedin heritage buildings [recent comments]
10.11.09 Dunedin public library services
24.10.09 Rodney Wilson: Dunedin as national heritage city
20.7.09 DCC + former CPO + others(??) = a public library (yeah right)

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Images: rootsweb.ancestry.com – Dunedin Chief Post Office (1930s) re-imaged by whatifdunedin; odt.co.nz – Gerard O’Brien: CPO Reroof, May 2011 [screenshot]

Dunedin Harbourside: English Heritage on portside development

By properly and logically establishing the significance of a historic port, plans can be laid that enhance and build on that significance and that incorporate difficult heritage buildings and structures.
–Simon Thurley, English Heritage

Dunedin Harbourside Historic Area
The New Zealand Historic Places Trust registered the Dunedin Harbourside Historic Area on 4 April 2008 (List No. 7767). The historic area takes in properties at 25, 31-33 Thomas Burns Street, Birch Street, Fryatt Street, Fish Street, Willis Street, Cresswell Street, Tewsley Street, Wharf Street, Roberts Street and Mason Street.

Image: Heritage New Zealand

The Dunedin Harbourside Historic Area is made up of the core of the port operations and associated businesses surrounding the steamer basin at the Upper Harbour in Dunedin which had developed by the first decades of the twentieth century. It includes a major portion of the land in Rattray, Willis and Cresswell Streets which was reclaimed by the end of the nineteenth century. It also includes the Fryatt Street and Cross Wharves, including the wharf sheds on Fryatt Street Wharf, as well as the former Otago Harbour Board Administration Building at the Junction of Birch Street and Cross Wharves, the former British Sailors’ Society Seafarers’ Centre, and the former Briscoe’s Wharf Store and Works on the corner of Birch, Wharf and Roberts Streets [since lost to fire], and the walls and bridge abutment on Roberts Street which are the remnants of the bridge which linked that Street to the city.
█ Read Registration report here.

Dunedin City Council has refused to list the Dunedin Harbourside Historic Area in the District Plan.

Image: ODT [screenshot]

### ODT Online Sat, 15 Mar 2014
‘Potential new harbourside developments ‘exciting’
By Chris Morris
Excitement is growing about the potential for fresh development of Dunedin’s harbourside, including a new marine science institute featuring a public aquarium being considered by the University of Otago. The Otago Daily Times understands university staff have already held preliminary talks with Dunedin City Council staff about a possible new marine science institute in the harbourside zone, on the south side of steamer basin. The Otago Regional Council has also met Betterways Advisory Ltd, which wants to build a waterfront hotel in the city, to discuss the ORC’s vacant waterfront site, it has been confirmed.
Read more

Potential for contemporary reuse – Fryatt Street wharfsheds
Images: 4.bp.blogspot.com; m1.behance.net

Historic ports are places that need intelligent interrogation before we start to reinvent them for the future: understanding their heritage significance is the first step.

On the waterfront: culture, heritage and regeneration of port cities

HERITAGE IN REGENERATION: INSPIRATION OR IRRELEVANCE?
By Dr Simon Thurley, Chief Executive, English Heritage

I had better come clean at the start. I live in a port. As it happens, it is a port which was, in its time, and on a different scale, as successful as Liverpool was in its heyday. But that time is rather a long time ago now, in fact over four hundred years. In 1600 my home town of King’s Lynn was amongst Britain’s leading ports, bigger than Bristol in numbers of ships and with trading tentacles reaching into the Baltic and far into the Mediterranean. Lynn’s position as a port was destroyed by the railways and although it still has working docks today the tonnage that passes through is very small. Yet anyone visiting it can instantly see that this was once a port; the customs house, the old quays, the merchants houses, the big market places and the fishermen’s houses all add immeasurably to Lynn’s sense of place.

We not only ask developers to build new structures that respect the old, but we also require them to incorporate old ones that have value.

It is this sense of place, this character, that we at English Heritage will always say that needs to be understood. For us the first and most important thing is that any developer and the relevant local authority should have a full understanding of the place in which major change is are planned. Various tools have been invented over the years to try and help that process. These include characterisation, historical studies, view studies, urban analysis and more. But does this actually make any difference? What happens to the richly illustrated historical reports produced by consultants? Are they handed to architects who then use them as their bible? Are they taken up by the planners and turned into supplementary planning guidance? Or do they just get put on a shelf?

There can be a broad consensus about what constitutes successful development that preserves aesthetic values. The trick for planning authorities is finding a way to capture it.

The answer is that normally it just gets forgotten because for most developers and many local authorities heritage is just a hindrance. If a report on heritage is commissioned they will have ticked off a process that they need to say they have done, but once completed it can be set aside and everyone can get on with the business of making money. Ipswich is an example of this. Like many ports, it has refocused its commercial hub away from the historic centre leaving a lot of land in the historic trading heart for regeneration. The city decided to prepare what it called an Area Action Plan for the redevelopment of the historic port. This included some work on the history, archaeology and development of the area: all very useful. The process was then to take this forward to create a series of planning briefs and master plans to inform individual developments. This would reinforce general points in the action plan about storey heights, vistas and through routes as well as issues about historic character. Regrettably, this latter part was not done and what Ipswich got was lots of poorly designed high-rise flats built on a budget. And they got it with the heritage studies still sitting on a shelf.
Read more

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Image: English Heritage – Tobacco Warehouse 1903, Stanley Dock LP

Liverpool World Heritage Site
Liverpool was inscribed as a World Heritage Site as the supreme example of a maritime city and its docks are testimony to that claim. Jesse Hartley’s Albert Dock, opened in 1845, is the finest example of a nineteenth century wet dock in the world while the nearby Canning Graving Docks and Waterloo and Wapping Warehouses are also of note. North of Pier Head with its magnificent ‘Three Graces’, Stanley Dock, Victoria Clock Tower and Salisbury Dock lie derelict, awaiting re-use. Link

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Contemporary development — Shed 10 and The Cloud, Queens Wharf, Auckland
Images: (from top) conventionsnz.co.nz; queens_wharf.co.nz; queens_wharf.co.nz; upload.wikimedia.org

█ For more, enter the terms *loan and mercantile* or *harbourside* in the search box at right.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Hotel MOU: DCC #fail

█ Hotel Memorandum of Understanding (PDF, 297 KB)

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Comment received from Rob Hamlin
Submitted on 2014/03/11 at 10:54 am

Perhaps the most unfortunate thing about this is the precedent that it sets. The MOU essentially commits the Council to make it happen by whatever means and by whatever council costs are necessary. The ludicrous conflict of interest that this sets up between the Council as developer regulator and Council as developer agent is breezily dismissed early on. If the DCC fails to deliver what the developer wants, then they (we) get to pay all the developer’s costs too. Thereby setting up a situation with considerable motive for the developer to increase the toxicity of this regulatory ‘poison pill’ by inflating these costs a la Carisbrook Stadium Charitable Trust.

There is nothing in this document that indicates why it is a special case or anything that defines it as a ‘one off’. This means that the next time a large developer wants to carve up rural zoned land on the Taieri or build an exclusive shooting resort next to the Albatross Colony all they have to do is download the .pdf of this MOU from McPravda’s website, replace Jing Song’s name with their own and present it to Cull and Bidrose with a request to ‘please sign this forthwith’. I can see no legal grounds on the basis of equity of treatment of development proposals by the territorial authority upon which Cull and Bidrose could reasonably refuse to do so. Refusal would therefore promptly lead to court action.

[ends]

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Related Posts and Comments:
10.3.14 Hotel: DCC and COC sell out Dunedin community to Chinese trojans
26.2.14 Hotel: Rosemary McQueen on consent decision LUC 2012-212
14.2.14 Hotel: The height of arrogance
25.6.13 Hotel/Apartment Tower decision to be appealed

█ For more, enter *hotel* in the search box at right.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Hotel: DCC and COC sell out Dunedin community to Chinese trojans

‘Perceived’ Conflict of Interest:
Dave Cull (also Mayor of Dunedin) has used Steve Rodgers (partner in Rodgers Law; also a director of Betterways Advisory Ltd) as his personal solicitor in recent times. The mayor is welcome to confirm or deny this in order to set the record straight.

Dunedin’s Old-Boy CARGO CULT is disabling your City

ODT Online 21.12.12 (screenshot)

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Dunedin City Council – Media Release
Next Step for Waterfront Hotel Proposal

This item was published on 10 Mar 2014

Mayor of Dunedin Dave Cull and Betterways Advisory Limited have today announced the signing of an agreement to work together to try to achieve the construction of a five-star hotel for Dunedin.

The parties have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that establishes a framework and a process to address issues raised by an earlier resource consent application.

Betterways’ application to build a 27-storey, five-star hotel at 41 Wharf Street was declined resource consent in June last year.

Mr Cull says, “Since that time, the DCC has worked extensively with Betterways to find whether a hotel can be constructed on this site that both realises Betterways’ investment ambitions and benefits the city.”

The DCC and Betterways agree that connectivity issues are a major focus going forward and have committed to work together to seek solutions.

If solutions can be found, the DCC will set up an urban design panel to provide independent design review and subsequent advice. Their focus will be on sustainable development and the creation of a design that contributes to a safe, healthy and attractive urban environment.

The panel will encourage best practice approaches to development, specific to the hotel’s site. This process provides an independent peer review from leaders in a variety of relevant professional institutes, including the development sector, practitioners and academics.

“Urban design panels are widely used in other centres. We’re really delighted to have an opportunity to use this successful formula here in Dunedin, and on such an important project for the city,” Mr Cull says.

Once the design panel and DCC staff members were satisfied the new hotel proposal had resolved the issues, the DCC would initiate a District Plan Change process to change the zoning of the Wharf Street site from industrial so a panel-approved design could be built on the site.

Any development proposal would still be subject to the Resource Management Act.

One of Betterways’ owners, Jing Song, says, “After a very challenging two years, we are delighted that the Council has shown a commitment to our investment in this beautiful city. We know our hotel plans are exciting for Dunedin and we are very pleased to have established a framework to deliver a hotel that meets the desires of the local community.”

The Council agreed to sign the MoU during the non-public part of its meeting on 24 February.

Betterways will make a decision about whether to pursue its appeal when the process agreed through the MoU has advanced enough to show that the proposal will be supported by the Council.

Hotel MOU (PDF, 297 KB)

Contact Mayor of Dunedin on 03 477 4000.

DCC Link

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Related Posts and Comments:
26.2.14 Hotel: Rosemary McQueen on consent decision LUC 2012-212
14.2.14 Hotel: The height of arrogance
25.6.13 Hotel/Apartment Tower decision to be appealed

█ For more, enter *hotel* in the search box at right.

ODT 10.3.14: Agreement signed over waterfront hotel

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Hotel: Rosemary McQueen on consent decision LUC 2012-212 (41 Wharf St)

41 Wharf Street, Dunedin (DCC WebMap)

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Copy supplied.
Also published at Otago Daily Times (page 17).

### ODT Online Wed, 26 Feb 2014
Opinion
Hotel decision was legal, not political
By Rosemary McQueen
Two related misapprehensions run through nearly all the comment on the application to build a 27-storey residential building in the industrial zone.

The first is that the reason the development was rejected was that a minority of noisy nay-sayers objected to the proposal. Yet, had 500 supporters put in submissions and only 4 or 5 naysayers, the decision would have been the same. The decision was not made on the basis of counting heads (though no doubt the planners were gratified that the District Plan’s provisions were so whole-heartedly supported by the populace) but on the basis of law. The developers want to build their accommodation block in an industrial area. Residential activity is specifically excluded from this area and only allowed at the discretion of the court hearing the application. Discretionary treatment can only be accorded if the effects of the variation to what is allowed are minor and the general intention accords with the aims and objectives of the district plan. The applicants’ arguments to this effect were rejected at law – not by counting heads. Until that decision is found to be wrong, or those aspects of the proposal change, it can not proceed.

There is also a view that the the city council could and should have found a way of overturning – or at least of getting round – the planning committee’s decision. This is a misapprehension because the decision is a legal one that can only be overturned by a higher court and the council is not a court. The negotiations that have been taking place have been around trying to find a site and design that complies with the city’s district plan and the developers’ needs. By describing the setback to the development as “red tape” the ODT implied that the development’s lack of progress since being rejected by the planning committee is caused by overweening bureaucracy. But Ms Song has made clear that the site and design are not negotiable. How can the lack of progress be the fault of red tape when the impediment is so clearly the developers’ intransigence, despite having had their application for that site and design turned down because it doesn’t meet the law?

By insisting the proposal is non-negotiable during their discussion with the city, the developers appear to believe that overturning the planning decision is on the discussion’s agenda and within the council’s power. Instead of dismissing any such suggestion, the ODT and the Chamber of Commerce have encouraged them in the view that the council can change or flout the law in order to allow the development to go ahead. Fostering these misapprehensions has led to unnecessary division in the city. It’s time to stop accusing bureaucrats and antis of holding up progress and start explaining why changes to our built environment are not effected by political whim, but are, and need to be, conducted by rule of law that has undergone full democratic process.

ODT Link

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Related Posts and Comments:
14.2.14 Hotel: The height of arrogance
25.6.13 Hotel/Apartment Tower decision to be appealed

For more, enter *hotel* in the search box at right.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Hotel: The height of arrogance

Don’t care how much you’ve spent on slapping Dunedin’s face, chook.
GO AWAY —give your ‘Swarovski crystal’ to some other place.

Bored housewife syndrome:
If you’ve spent a million already your consultants are out of control.

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### ODT Online Fri, 14 Feb 2014
Harbour hotel now ‘a long shot’
By Chris Morris
The woman behind the plan to build a $100 million waterfront hotel in Dunedin says the proposal is now “a long shot”. Betterways Advisory Ltd director Jing Song, of Queenstown, told the Otago Daily Times she was frustrated by the delays and cost involved, after spending more than $1 million so far on pursuing the project at 41 Wharf St.
Read more

DEPLORABLY, Mayor Cull has held several meetings with the developers in Auckland “to try to advance the project”. The Mayor deliberately mixes HIS politics with a resource management matter, SHAME.

*Mr Rodgers is Mr Cull’s personal solicitor.

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Related Post and Comments:
25.6.13 Hotel/Apartment Tower decision to be appealed

For more, enter *hotel* in the search box at right.

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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’)?

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### 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.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Harbourside: Access to a revamped Steamer Basin has public backing

Liability Cull is not 100% correct. So what’s new.

The ‘harbourside’ public consultation, including pre-plan change workshops, picked up good support for IMPROVED public access to the waterline (note, via a reinstated Rattray Street rail crossing at grade) and a REVAMPED Steamer Basin.

WE HAVE BEEN ROBBED.
Cull says the harbourside plan change was a mistake. It most surely was not a mistake! The proposed plans for how the plan change would be articulated in the area were the problem. Nearly everyone wanted historic industrial sheds and wharf sheds to remain and be redeveloped sympathetically with respect to heritage values, enhancing the land-water connection. Unfortunately, and fortunately, the Otago Chamber of Commerce with five partners appealed the plan change decision, significantly dashing the intents and purposes of the “vision”. Nonetheless, this shouldn’t stop future redevelopment of the ‘edge’ at the Steamer Basin, for greater community recreational use, with some commercial opportunities built in. We still haven’t got walk-on/walk-off access for the cruising yachts heading to subantarctic waters —embarrassing.

OK DCC’s broke at the moment, but ORC…

Cull – Crash one (PC-7), get bent on inviting the real mistake… the $100m tombstone apartment and hotel complex at 41 Wharf Street, with all inherent costs to Dunedin ratepayers and residents. That’s where Cull stands, nowhere good. Not even close.

█ Plan Change 7 – Harbourside

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### ODT Online Mon, 21 Oct 2013
Harbour project labelled mistake
By Chris Morris
Pursuing a vision of harbourside redevelopment in Dunedin has so far cost the city’s ratepayers more than $2.6 million, it has been confirmed. The revelation, prompted by Otago Daily Times inquiries, has led the Otago Chamber of Commerce to label the Dunedin City Council’s ”grandiose” plan a mistake. It has also prompted Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull, who was an early critic of the proposal, to suggest it should never have got off the ground.
Read more

DCC’s habourside costs – $2.6m (via ODT)
• Legal costs – $401,660
• Settlement – $200,000
• Other costs – $315,633
• Capital costs – $1,697,192
• Total – $2,614,485

Capital costs of $1,697,192 comprising:
• 2005-06 – purchase of 20 Thomas Burns St – $497,500
• 2011-12 – purchase of 30 Thomas Burns St – $1,199,692

NZHPT Dunedin Harbourside Historic Area

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3.8.13 SH88 notice of requirement
21.4.13 ‘Yellow Balloon’ —Blue Oyster invitation to (TOWER) Submitters et al
9.4.13 Dunedin: Future service town to Shell? #realitycheck
24.9.12 Stadium Councillors back coastal oil exploration
16.5.12 Dunedin Hotel
● 26.10.11 Dunedin Harbourside: DCC “caved”
17.12.10 HARBOURSIDE Announcement
17.4.10 Harbourside: more negotiation to come
16.4.10 DCC Media Release – Harbourside Stage Two
13.4.10 Dunedin – an oil base?
1.4.10 DCC Media Release – Harbourside
27.3.10 Withdraw proposed Harbourside plan change in its entirety!
18.3.10 Otago Chamber of Commerce campaigns for harbourside
18.3.10 Dunedin harbourside for oil base?
10.3.13 Plan Change 7: Harbourside – remove stage two
9.3.10 Plan Change 7: Harbourside
5.3.10 Plan Change 7 – Dunedin Harbourside
26.2.10 Latest on Dunedin’s offshore oil and gas prospects
13.2.09 HOT PRESS – Dunedin Harbourside Zone

█ For more, enter the terms *loan and mercantile*, *harbourside*, *hotel*, *balloon*, *shell*, *anadarko* or *SH88* in the search box at right.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

ODT: Piece of maritime history moved
Another lost opportunity cut in half — Te Whaka at Birch St Wharf
Image: norsetroll.blogspot.com

41 Wharf Street —DCC ends debacle

Fear not! More costly settlement is due.
There’s the perplexing State Highway 88 Realignment Project for Council to conclude with affected parties damaged by foul-play planning activity, and the new round of ‘proper’ designation! This will make Mr Barnett’s cheque seem like a 4% discount fuel voucher ripped from a mile-long supermarket receipt for your best ever, most hair-raising Christmas shop!

### ODT Online Tue, 27 Aug 2013
Apology, payout to developer
By Debbie Porteous
Dunedin developer Tim Barnett has received a public apology and a $200,000 payout following a lengthy battle to recover his costs after the Dunedin City Council restricted his ability to develop his harbourside property. The property, at 41 Wharf St, has since been sold to developers who are hoping to build a 27-storey hotel on it.

41 Wharf Street, Dunedin [DCC WebMap]

DCC chief executive Paul Orders yesterday apologised to Mr Barnett, of Arthur Barnett Properties, for the inconvenience caused by the council’s decision-making since 2008. The formal apology, issued by Mr Orders yesterday, read:

”Council apologises for the inconvenience, and also thanks Mr Barnett for working with council in good faith as the parties explored options over some years. Mr Barnett has a long history of commitment to the city of Dunedin. Council trusts that the good working relationship that has developed between Mr Barnett and the council over the years will continue.”

The $200,000 covers Mr Barnett’s out-of-pocket costs (just under $118,000), the interest on his costs ($41,000) and a contribution to his legal fees during his lengthy attempt to first remove the restrictions on developing the site and then recover from the council the cost of those restrictions.
Read more

For more on 41 Wharf Street, enter *hotel* in the search box at right.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Hotel/Apartment Tower decision to be appealed

Updated 2.7.13

Tweet:

peter mcintyre @macthebroker
Hotel decision to be appealed | Otago Daily Times Online News : Zealand & International News shar.es/x85Pq via @ShareThis

5:11pm · 25 Jun 13 · Tweet Button

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### RNZ News Updated 24 minutes ago
Dunedin hotel plan heading to court
The developer planning a 27-storey waterfront hotel in Dunedin is taking its case to court. A Dunedin City Council panel declined resource consents for the $100 million project three weeks ago, saying it failed a key legal test and the glass tower would be too high for its industrial-zoned site. The five-star hotel and apartment complex has been hotly debated since being announced a year ago. On Tuesday afternoon, the company behind the project Betterways Advisory Limited, announced it will be appealing to the Environment Court against the council’s decision. The appeal will mean the court will attempt to broker a compromise between the developer, the council and any of the public submitters who want to get involved.
However, it seems likely that the court will have to hold its own full hearing into the project, probably early in 2014.
RNZ Link

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We really love Jing Song, Steve Rodgers, and their gift that keeps on giving. FO.
A source reveals Betterways’ appeal cites Consultancy House as a precedent. Interesting, the owners of Consultancy House strongly objected to the application in their submissions.

Related Posts and Comments:
18.6.13 Hotel: COC’s greasy spoon race. Ugh!
5.6.13 Hotel decision . . . (the vacuum)

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

[screenshot]

Hotel: COC’s greasy spoon race. Ugh!

### ODT Online Tue, 18 Jun 2013
Hotel supporters still in discussions
By Chris Morris
Alternatives to a $100 million waterfront hotel in Dunedin are still being discussed as the clock ticks towards a decision deadline. However, exactly what the hotel developers’ next move will be remains a closely guarded secret after they were refused resource consent earlier this month.

Betterways Advisory Ltd has until June 26 to decide whether to appeal the decision of the Dunedin City Council’s hearings committee to decline consent for the hotel at 41 Wharf St.

Betterways director Steve Rodgers – the man fronting the hotel bid – did not want to comment on any aspect of the hotel bid yesterday, saying only the full time allowed to decide any appeal would be needed. However, the Otago Daily Times understands several property owners have come forward with alternative sites capable of accommodating a hotel, and that parties were busy behind the scenes. That included the Otago Chamber of Commerce, which had indicated earlier this month it was talking to Betterways to try and rescue the situation.
Read more

*[Otago] Chamber of Commerce, affectionately known as “COC”.

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Related Post and Comments:
5.6.13 Hotel decision . . . (the vacuum)

For more, enter *hotel* in the search box at right.

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Posted By Elizabeth Kerr

Why should we lift a finger . . .

Not the same finger we lifted to the 27-storey, 96.300m high hotel/apartment building.

### ODT Online Fri, 7 Jun 2013
Editorial: Dunedin’s five-star hotel
The decision to reject the Betterways Advisory bid to build a $100 million waterfront hotel in Dunedin is, on the face of it, not surprising. As the Dunedin City Council hearings committee kept calling for further information, there was a sense within the community the project would fall at the first hurdle.

No city in the country can afford to stand by and let $100 million of private investment disappear.

Dunedin is a heritage city, having escaped the worst of the 1980s excesses of glass towers. That, in fact, proved to be something of a problem for the developers. Hearings committee chairman Colin Weatherall this week correctly said the decision had to be made on facts, not the heart. The city prides itself on its buildings. And tourists come here for many reasons, including the cityscape. So where to from here?
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Hotel decision . . . (the vacuum)

DECISION OF COMMISSIONERS APPOINTED BY
DUNEDIN CITY COUNCIL (4 JUNE 2013)

1
Having carefully considered all the relevant reports and documentation supplied with the application, submissions, and the evidence presented to us during the course of the hearing, we have resolved to refuse the application from Betterways Advisory Limited to construct and operate a licensed hotel with residential apartments at 41 Wharf Street, Dunedin.

2
Since the proposal is a non-complying activity we were required to consider the particular restrictions imposed by s.104D in the Resource Management Act 1991. This requires the proposal to pass at least one of two tests. Having considered these, we were not satisfied that the adverse effects on the environment would be minor (s.104D(1)(a)), and nor were we satisfied that the activities associated with the application would not be contrary to the objectives and policies of the Dunedin City District Plan (s.104D(1)(b)). Having made these determinations, in terms of s.104D, we were unable to grant consent.

3
Throughout Chapter 6 of this decision we considered the environmental effects that were brought to our attention and have drawn our own conclusions as to how each of these issues impacted on this decision. Having done so, we have also undertaken an overall evaluation of the adverse impacts of the proposal in light of the expected positive effects.

4
Having examined the proposal with reference to Part 2 and Section 104 of the Resource Management Act 1991, we have also concluded that the proposal is not consistent with the overriding sustainability purpose of the Act as expressed in s.5(1).

The Hearings Committee of Ministry for the Environment-approved independent Commissioners was comprised of Crs Colin Weatherall (Chair), Andrew Noone and Kate Wilson, and John Lumsden of Christchurch.

Full decision (PDF 1.5 MB, 333 pages)

Stuff at 11:06 06/06/2013

ODT Online 06/06/2013
ODT Online 06/06/2013

RNZ News at 8:45pm 05/06/2013
RNZ Checkpoint 05/06/2013

Ch39 at 6:54pm 05/06/2013 [with video]

RNZ News at 12:24 05/06/2013

Stuff at 12:12 05/06/2013

3News at 10:36 05/06/2013 + Video

ODT Online 05/06/2013 [with video]

TVNZ ONE News at 9:46 05/06/2013 + Video

DCC Media Release 05/06/2013

► Enter *hotel* in the search box at right for more.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

WATERFRONT HOTEL #DUNEDIN

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

41 Wharf Street —consent renewed, with HOTEL decision pending

[via Anon]

The following non-notified consent decision appeared at the DCC website on 23 May 2013:

41 Wharf Street Dunedin (LUC-2007-775/A)

This consent was an application to/for A 3 storied building for commercial office and residential use within an Industrial 1 Zone at 41 Wharf Street Dunedin.

This was considered by the Council’s Senior Planner (Consents) on 16 May 2013.

The typos are ‘Council-supplied’.

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The back story, note highlighted comment below the image:

### ODT Online Fri, 16 Dec 2011
Dunedin developer finally gets the nod
By David Loughrey
Two Environment Court documents released in the past week spell the end of a lengthy attempt by Dunedin developer Tim Barnett to fight restrictions on his ability to build on a long-empty piece of harbourside land. The documents relate to his appeal against the Dunedin City Council’s plan change 7, or harbourside rezoning which, they said, was “nugatory”, or no longer valid. That meant no restrictions remain for the land at 41 Wharf St, on which he has resource consent to build a planned three-storey office and residential building beside the Steamer Basin at Otago Harbour.

The future of the site, next to the overhead bridge from the harbour to Jetty St, was unclear, as Mr Barnett this week said commercial developments, which he could not discuss, were under way.

But he is still clearly unhappy with the process he has been forced to go through. The site is highly visible to thousands of passing motorists travelling to or from Portsmouth Dr and southern suburbs. In December 2007, Mr Barnett, of Arthur Barnett Properties, applied for consent to build the 3105sq m building on windswept empty land that was once part of rail shunting yards. Two months later, the site was identified by the council as a possible road linking Wharf St with a new on-ramp to the nearby overbridge, and the council has a notice of requirement over the whole site. In May 2008, Mr Barnett was granted consent for the development, but with the council’s plans creating uncertainty, it did not proceed.
Read more

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Related Post and Comments:
18.5.13 Waterfront hotel investigation II

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image by Design Consultancy

Waterfront hotel investigation II

Received from Hype O’Thermia
Saturday, 18 May 2013 4:41 p.m.

External cladding and glazing treatment (Dunedin study)

For related posts and comments, enter “hotel” in the search box at right.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Photos: Red Carpet Fashion (via stuff)

‘Heartbreak Hotel’ —Grahame Sydney

Received Thursday, 18 April 2013 11:23 a.m.

Wharf Street Hotel: time for some answers
By Grahame Sydney

With the DCC’s Resource Consent panel now sitting on its evidence, the full Council prevented from commenting on the proposal, and Dunedin ironically about to indulge in a celebration of its invaluable built heritage, isn’t it time a few things were clarified for the Dunedin public ? Time for a few truths to be told, instead of the shamefully dishonest propaganda from the promoters of the Wharf Street Hotel ?

Let’s start with the promotional video released on May 11, 2012 and voiced on behalf of his clients by Steve Rodgers of “Betterways Advisory”.

This sophisticated promo is a must-watch for all Dunedin residents, because within its 3 minute 49 second running time they will discover a Dunedin totally unlike the one they know: this is a fantasy Dunedin, whose tranquil waterfront bears no resemblance whatever to the facts. It is neat and orderly, blessed with open park spaces, and tied to its wharfs are luxury yachts and container ships. Rows of new, unrecognisable buildings have miraculously appeared behind every view of the towering glass monolith, and as the CGI camera sweeps across this fictional CBD towards the Stadium (curiously glimpsed only from overhead) and down its oddly-scaled roadways citizens will puzzle to identify any of the many buildings occupying the land in the vicinity of the Railway Station.

Perhaps the developers have bolder plans than a single hotel ? Certainly the Dunedin presented in this video sales pitch is not today’s city. It’s a scrubbed up, redesigned, blatantly re-scaled quasi-Auckland Viaduct vision in which the hideous proportions of the hotel appear more comfortable and the truth is deliberately ignored.

Dunedin eNZed May 13, 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhiKqnDT06M

As you watch, hit the Pause button at 33 seconds, at 53, at 1.14, at 1.21, at 1.39, at 2.22….. what ARE those buildings ? Where did they come from ? Have I been asleep these last decades ? Am I in the right city here ? Would someone please be honest here ?

Having extolled the virtues of the city’s marvellous heritage buildings, and noting that they are one of the major reasons why “tourists love this city”, Mr Rodgers proceeds to extol the virtues of “my clients’ grand design”, which so brutally desecrates that heritage.

Who are these visionary clients, so hellbent on bestowing gifts ? We are slowly learning: the “Otago Businesswoman” behind the proposal is an ex-accountant locally, now consultant and wine promoter living in Queenstown. Ms Song has the good fortune to be married to Ping Cao, reportedly “one of China’s top construction company owners”. That marriage, incidentally, took place in another New Zealand city with which she reported fell instantly in love: Nelson. No “gifts” for Nelson, however. How fickle is love.

Being pushed forward now as the public face of the project, Ms Song’s repeated professions of love for Dunedin are no substitute for expertise, or indeed sensitivity. It is evident she and her entrepreneur husband belong to the camp which believes Dunedin’s Victorian and Edwardian built heritage has less appeal than the monstrously ugly Dunedin Stadium, and that they anticipate a brighter future for the city when more of the same charmless, cheap, dated design has overwhelmed the city’s essential historic character.

Far too many unanswered questions remain, and honest answers would be enlightening.

Hotel: Grahame Sydney on tenants for 164 apartments

ODT Graphic – The Wash, 17.4.13 (page 2)

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Anonymous commented here (18.3.13) on the likelihood of the proposed tower apartments being pitched to students from China.

In short, proposed apartments intended as ‘university college’ atop a cheapish 5-star hotel.

Artist Grahame Sydney comes to the same conclusion. An (unpublished) opinion piece he sends to DScene leads reporter Wilma McCorkindale to engage Betterways owner, (note) Steve Rodgers.

We’d like Sydney to publish his full article ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ at What if? – since DScene and Southland Times only reference the item, fleetingly. Too hot to handle? So Grahame, if you’re reading this . . .
[happily, we got it, read the unabridged version here]

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### stuff.co.nz Last updated 14:46 17/04/2013
Hotel a ‘hostel for privileged’
By Southland Times + DScene
Apartments in the proposed hotel for Dunedin’s waterfront could end up being occupied by Chinese students – or anybody else who wants them – project spokesman solicitor Steve Rodgers says.
Rodgers fronts for Betterways Advisory, a company owned by Chinese woman Jing Song*, which is proposing to build the 28-storey, five-star Dunedin Hotel on an industrial site a stone’s throw from the city’s inner harbour. This week he defended scathing commentary about the project, levelled by Otago artist Grahame Sydney.
In an article called Heartbreak Hotel sent to DScene, Sydney voiced several concerns, many already played out during a recent consent hearing – including the hotel’s ability to achieve economically viable occupancy rates. Sydney believed Betterways was targeting the lucrative international student market, specifically Chinese students, by including 164 apartments in the project.
Sydney also complained that a promotional video illustrating the hotel concept deliberately excluded surrounding heritage buildings in its visuals. The impact on heritage values in the city was one of the major concerns raised in submissions.
Read more

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*What if? notes the New Zealand Companies Office register entry for Betterways Advisory Ltd (3142026) lists Stephen Rodgers as the sole director, with LMW Trust Limited (3141813) as the shareholder. Jing Song isn’t mentioned in connection with either entity.

Related Posts and Comments:
15.4.13 University buys LivingSpace Dunedin
15.4.13 Shane McGrath —Gelber LuftBallon (Dunedin Research Project)
14.4.13 Ballooning! —playing off Betterways
16.3.13 Hotel: COC jollies and sweet cherry pie
23.1.13 Proposed hotel: Council and submitters await detailed information

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Shane McGrath —Gelber LuftBallon (Dunedin Research Project)

Artist sculptor Shane McGrath successfully built and flew, with the help of friends, a helium-filled yellow blimp today at Customhouse Quay in Dunedin.
Relatively still air conditions twice allowed the ‘friendly’ LuftBallon to gain maximum height – simulating, indirectly, the proposed height (96.3 metres) of the hotel and apartment tower planned for the vacant site across the road at 41 Wharf Street.
McGrath had earlier made sure the planned flight received CAA clearance.
The blimp contained smaller balloons filled with the gas to guard against a sudden downing. A small team of men, including McGrath, coordinated the length and position of the guide-lines, keeping the blimp off surrounding buildings and roads, and out of harbour waters.
The bright photogenic structure – alternately Lemon, Zeppelin, Chrysalis – hovered impressively overhead for half a day, long enough for professional photographers and camera people to take stills and recordings from the site and prominent vantage points around the city.

Images: Elizabeth Kerr

Gerard O’Brien’s outstanding photographs place the Gelber LuftBallon in the city context – see tomorrow’s Otago Daily Times.

█ Enter *hotel* in the search box at right to learn more about the proposed hotel and apartment building for 41 Wharf Street.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Ballooning! —playing off Betterways

While the DCC ‘red carpet’ gets gazumped by Christchurch mayor Bob Parker’s trip to Sister Cities exploring joint ventures with Chinese investors to build HOTELS (and more!) . . .

. . . independent artist sculptor Shane McGrath has a crack at ‘height indications’ down at the Dunedin waterfront on ● MONDAY

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Originally from Melbourne, McGrath completed his Master’s in Fine Arts at Massey University in 2009 and is establishing a trans-Tasman practice. In March 2012 he completed a major new public art work for a park in central Wellington, was an artist in residence at the Yarra Sculpture Gallery in Melbourne and had work included in the Sculpture by the Sea in Sydney.

29.11.10 3News — The focal point of Shane McGrath’s Fight or Flight exhibition is a phallic-shaped zeppelin. Video

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Chongqing, Southwest China

### news.xinhuanet.com | English.news.cn 2013-01-26 21:27:26
Chongqing sets new roadmap in post-Bo Xilai era
CHONGQING, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) — Chongqing’s municipal government vowed Saturday it would shake off the impacts of the Bo Xilai scandal and make law-abiding governance the priority alongside further reform. Huang Qifan, mayor of the metropolis in southwest China, described 2012 as an “extremely extraordinary year” for Chongqing’s development in his report on the work of the municipal government, which was delivered to the 4th Chongqing Municipal People’s Congress.

The local legislature convened its annual session on Saturday with aims to outline the city’s future blueprint for the next five years. The mayor said the government has endeavoured to maintain steady economical and social development despite the severe toll of the incidents involving Bo Xilai, with the city recording an annual economic growth of 13.6 percent. “It turned out that Chongqing citizens have weathered storms and withstood ordeals,” he said.

The government published the full text of its work report, in which it placed governing in accordance with the Constitution and the law as a main focus for this year, while references to Chongqing’s previous high-profile crackdowns on organised crimes are notably absent. In 2009, when Bo Xilai was the CPC (Communist Party of China) chief of Chongqing, the city launched a massive anti-crime campaign, prioritising fighting local mafia-style gangs. Though Bo and Chongqing’s police were credited with reducing crime, concerns were raised about abuses of power and the neglect of due legal process.

The government should rule in accordance with the law, and “no organisation or individual has the privilege to overstep the Constitution and the law,” the work report said. A power reshuffle in this session is set to usher in new local leaders, higher requirements are posed for the municipal government to further intensify reform, Huang told the lawmakers, adding that improvement to work style should be made following the central leadership’s call for eradicating bureaucracy and formalism in December.

Officials in Chongqing are urged to remain low-key and down to earth, talk less and work more to better serve the people.
Read more

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“Amazing city… but without spirit… is a City with many construction. Don’t have the beauty of Brasilia… is a new city of construction.” —Cidade_Branca (architect) at SkyscaperCity CHONGQING | Projects & Construction (2.11.07 03:36 AM)

Wikipedia: Chongqing

“One river is naturally brown from the silt, the other is normal dark blue.”
—the spliff fairy at SkyscraperCity (28.2.13 01:54 PM)

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### nytimes.com September 26, 2011
Built in a Dirty Boom, China’s Biggest City Tries to Go Green
By Coco Liu – ClimateWire
CHONGQING, China — Wandering around in downtown Chongqing, it is hard to imagine that this is a city that is going green. Vehicles clog roads in every direction. Construction cranes stretch to the horizon. And huge posters displaying locally produced industrial goods show where the city’s exploding economic growth is coming from. But Chongqing (population 28,846,200) is more than meets the eye. After living with acid rain and toxic smog for decades, the city has been scrambling for ways to clean up the air. It is also overhauling its power-hungry economy and rebuilding it on a base of industries that use less energy.

Chongqing isn’t alone on such a transformation path. It is one of several pilot provinces and cities that Chinese leaders picked last year in an attempt to find a low-carbon growth model that can be spread to the rest of the nation. Experts attribute this new Chinese desire to the fact that China’s environment and natural resources can no longer afford the blights of heavily polluting, energy-intensive growth. Moreover, there is growing pressure from the outside world to reduce emissions.

Chongqing, controlled demolition 30.8.12

Cities will play a major role in that effort. During the next 20 years, more than half of global greenhouse gas emissions are estimated to come from the developing world’s cities, and more than half of that will come from Chinese cities, says Michael Lindfield, a lead urban development specialist at the Asian Development Bank. “So the importance of making Chinese cities energy-efficient is really a global issue, not just a Chinese issue,” Lindfield added.

But none of this comes easily. For one, it is hard for cities to uproot decades-old economic foundations. In addition, cities risk revenue losses. Energy-guzzling factories that are shut down, in many cases, can’t be immediately offset by low-carbon industries that are still in their nascent stage. Moreover, the switch from traditional industries to green businesses claims jobs, at least for a short term. While cement makers can hire people with few skills, solar panel producers can’t.

Chongqing [became] one of the nation’s industrial hubs. It is China’s biggest producer of motorcycles. It leads in aluminum production. Every day, containers of made-in-Chongqing steel, chemicals and machinery are loaded on cargo ships and then sent from here to destinations along the Yangtze River. All this came at a heavy price.

Data from the World Bank showed that in the early 2000s, one-third of crops in the Chongqing area had been damaged by acid rain — the result of sulfur dioxide and other industrial pollutants. Breathing here became a dangerous thing to do. The World Bank reported that in 2004, residents in Chongqing were inhaling six times more lung cancer-causing pollutants than the World Health Organization considers safe.

“The city was always enveloped by fog and smog,” explained Li, the local economist. The mountain terrain around it helped concentrate Chongqing’s murky air, he said, “but pollution from heavy industries was the key.”
Read more

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Chongqing Planning and Exhibition Centre. The city model shows a concept idea of the future of Chongqing. Most important skyscrapers aren’t added until they have a definitive design. —z0rg at SkyscraperCity CHONGQING | Projects & Construction (6.8.06 09:32 PM)

100 towers taller than 200m including 20 supertalls in one city.
Chongqing 200+ metre List —z0rg at SkyscraperCity (6.7.08 10:05 AM)

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[ODT] The project was being advanced on their behalf by Betterways, of which Ms Jing Song was also a director.

### ODT Online Sat, 23 Mar 2013
Betterways, Diamond Heights link
By Chris Morris
DUNEDIN — The construction company linked to Dunedin’s proposed $100 million waterfront hotel is building the tallest tower in western China. The building will be the tallest for the time being, at least. It has been confirmed the company linked to Dunedin’s proposed hotel is Diamond Heights Construction Engineering Co Ltd, which is based in Chongqing, China, and employs more than 1000 staff. The company is owned by Ping Cao, who together with wife Jing Song, of Queenstown, wants to build Dunedin’s five-star hotel on industrial land at 41 Wharf St.

While it was said Diamond Heights would not be directly involved in construction of Dunedin’s hotel – should consent to proceed be granted – Mr Cao and Ms Song planned to fund it together and contract a New Zealand company to build it.

Mr Cao’s company is responsible for the construction of the 65-storey Shangri-la Hotel in Chongqing, which at 290m high will, when completed, be nearly three times the height of Dunedin’s proposed hotel. It was almost finished, with only the exterior cladding to be added, and was an impressive sight when visited by Betterways Advisory Ltd director Steve Rodgers last year, he told the Otago Daily Times.
The company was also involved in other projects in China, including two sprawling mixed-use developments comprising hotels, other commercial buildings and housing.
Read more

Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts is said to be Asia Pacific’s leading luxury hotel group. Four Shangri-La hotels are projected for Chongqing.
Image: businesstraveller.asia

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Related Posts and Comments:
16.3.13 Hotel: COC jollies and sweet cherry pie
23.1.13 Proposed hotel: Council and submitters await detailed information
28.12.12 ‘Low-rises are great for the community and the residents’
24.12.12 A Christmas Tale
21.12.12 Proposed hotel – ODT graphic indicates building height
19.12.12 Hearing for proposed hotel – competencies, conflicts of interest?
16.12.12 Proposed Dunedin Hotel #height
10.12.12 Proposed hotel, 41 Wharf St – “LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS”
7.12.12 Proposed hotel – Truescape shenanigans
6.12.12 Dunedin Hotel – revised design
2.12.12 Roy Rogers and Trigger photographed recently at Dunedin
26.11.12 Proposed hotel, 41 Wharf Street – indicative landscape effects
20.11.12 City planner’s report recommends against consent for hotel
10.11.12 Dunedin Hotel, 41 Wharf Street (LUC 2012-212)
4.10.12 DUNEDIN: We’re short(!) but here is some UK nous…
8.9.12 Waterfront Hotel #Dunedin (Applicant names?)
7.9.12 Waterfront hotel: DCC to notify resource consent application
23.6.12 Mis(t)apprehension: website visits, not bookings?
16.5.12 Dunedin Hotel

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Hotel: COC jollies and sweet cherry pie

LUC 2012-212 Betterways Advisory Limited
41 Wharf Street, Dunedin

507 submissions were received following notification of the application, 457 in opposition, 43 in support, and seven were neutral in their stance.

How high is 96.300 metres. How rank is the design.
How sunk is public access to full assessment of environmental effects (AEE).

Christchurch is building low.

The Dunedin stadium (named for the company the Commerce Commission recently described as misleading and deceptive in their marketing) has not been tested by a large earthquake or swarm. It stands on land prone to liquefaction.

The proposed hotel and apartment complex (28 storeys) – a tall building – will stand on land prone to liquefaction.

Is there sense or cents driving this. Offshore bling.

The Minister for Tourism, Pokies and Convention Centres is John Key PM.
Tourism lives in the second tier economy, mostly, brashly, at Queenstown Lakes.

Dark suits of Chamber want some o’ that sweet cherry pie.
How will it come.

Related Posts and Comments:
23.1.13 Proposed hotel: Council and submitters await detailed information
28.12.12 ‘Low-rises are great for the community and the residents’
24.12.12 A Christmas Tale
21.12.12 Proposed hotel – ODT graphic indicates building height
19.12.12 Hearing for proposed hotel – competencies, conflicts of interest?
16.12.12 Proposed Dunedin Hotel #height
10.12.12 Proposed hotel, 41 Wharf St – “LEARNING FROM LAS VEGAS”
7.12.12 Proposed hotel – Truescape shenanigans
6.12.12 Dunedin Hotel – revised design
2.12.12 Roy Rogers and Trigger photographed recently at Dunedin
26.11.12 Proposed hotel, 41 Wharf Street – indicative landscape effects
20.11.12 City planner’s report recommends against consent for hotel
10.11.12 Dunedin Hotel, 41 Wharf Street (LUC 2012-212)
4.10.12 DUNEDIN: We’re short(!) but here is some UK nous…
8.9.12 Waterfront Hotel #Dunedin (Applicant names?)
7.9.12 Waterfront hotel: DCC to notify resource consent application
23.6.12 Mis(t)apprehension: website visits, not bookings?
16.5.12 Dunedin Hotel

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Images: Cherry Pie, WiseGeek (top). ‘Cherry Pie service’ (redraw), from Cherry Pie (Remastered), last.fm

Proposed hotel: Council and submitters await detailed information

The committee planned to invite hundreds of submitters to have another say on the new information, before resuming the hotel’s resource consent hearing in March.

### ODT Online Wed, 23 Jan 2013
Further dialogue on hotel
By Chris Morris
Plans for a $100 million five-star hotel on Dunedin’s waterfront are to go back to submitters for another round of public consultation. It was confirmed yesterday the Dunedin City Council’s hearings committee has requested more information from Betterways Advisory Ltd, which wants to build the 28-storey hotel and apartment tower.
The details were contained in a letter from committee chairman Cr Colin Weatherall to Betterways, dated January 17 and released to the Otago Daily Times by Cr Weatherall yesterday. Betterways director Steve Rodgers said when contacted he was still considering its contents, but was frustrated and concerned by the length of time the consent process was taking.
Read more

Cr Weatherall’s letter to Betterways said extra information was required for a “proper understanding” of the hotel and its impact on the immediate surroundings and wider environment.

Information wanted by 15 February:
● An assessment of the environmental effects of construction and wind disturbance arising from the hotel
● A report from a recognised landscape expert
● Additional computer-generated images showing the hotel from locations around the city
● Betterways Advisory Ltd must physically demonstrate the hotel’s height on site in a way that was visible from across the harbour, perhaps by using a tethered balloon.

Image: ODT Online 2.12.12 [screenshot]

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

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Proposed hotel – ODT graphic indicates building height

ODT Online 21.12.12 (screenshot)

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

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

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

UGLY DOESN’T COVER IT

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Proposed Dunedin Hotel #height

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

As published at ODT Online:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ODT Link

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr