Win! to DCC candidate Paul Pope #DunedinHospital

ODT 22.8.16 (page 6)

*overlay by whatifdunedin

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Posted by Stop Dunedin Hospital from being downgraded
Monday, 22 August 2016

[screenshot]

Comments on Monday, 22 August 2016 at 7:12 p.m.
[screenshot – click to enlarge]

█ For more, enter the terms *hospital*, *sdhb* and *food* in the search box at right.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Election Year. This post is offered in the public interest.

Dunedin Hospital #despair

Initially, it was hoped the $11 million upgrade would not get bogged down in a drawn-out approval process.

### ODT Online Fri, 30 Oct 2015
ICU upgrade approval not before March
By Eileen Goodwin
Approval for the long-awaited Dunedin Hospital intensive care unit upgrade has been pushed back to March at the earliest, it has been confirmed. […] The upgrade was considered urgent last year, when the unit lost its accreditation to train specialists, and it was initially hoped building work would start by mid-2015 or sooner.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: clker.com – red cross Joshua Dwire 03-svg-med; text overlay (help) by whatifdunedin

Stadiums: Auckland works to limits —Dunedin, never

Link received from UpNorth
Fri, 24 Jul 2015 at 8:51 p.m.

█ Message: I see Auckland Town Planners are smart and honest enough to realise that Auckland (population 1.5 million) can’t support 3 outdoor stadiums. Dunedin (population 127k) can’t support one.

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Plans to revamp Auckland’s stadiums are heading nowhere – with a multimillion-dollar price tag – as the Warriors rule out moving to the far end of the North Shore. Steve Deane examines how it came to this.

### NZ Herald Online 7:09 PM Friday Jul 24, 2015
The Big Read: Field of broken dreams
By Steve Deane
Aucklanders are set to spend $27 million upgrading a stadium in Albany so it can host 30,000 spectators. The stadium will host as few as seven matches a year, with attendance for the vast majority expected to be well below 10,000. That’s a good thing, as when crowds get above 20,000, accessing the stadium becomes a nightmare.
At the same time, city officials will shell out another $12 million of ratepayer money building a world class cricket venue which the local association has no plans to call home, meaning it too will host a handful of matches a year. And we’ll evict our NRL franchise, turning its home ground of the last 20 years into a speedway track – a move the Warriors say will force it to take matches out of the city.
This is Auckland’s plan for its sporting stadia for the next 40 years. In just 10 months it will become a reality. Time for some hard questions.

What is the Stadium Strategy?
Auckland’s town planners believe the city cannot financially support three major outdoor sports stadia (Eden Park, Mt Smart and Albany’s QBE Stadium).
Tasked with finding a cheaper solution, the planners have decided to transform Albany into the city’s premier venue for matches that will attract crowds of up to 30,600. Mt Smart Stadium in Penrose is to be converted into a speedway circuit and Western Springs into an international standard cricket venue.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image: rcp.co.nz – Eden Park 02

Hamilton is here, DUD

Link received from Hype O’Thermia
Sat, 4 Apr 2015 at 10:20 a.m.

█ Message: Local shop owners blame lack of free parking and rising costs for “demise” of Hamilton’s CBD.

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The Central Business District of Hamilton is looking a little gloomy, with for lease signs up in many shop windows.

### Stuff.co.nz Last updated 05:00, April 4 2015
Hamilton central-city retail space sits empty
By Rachel Thomas and Nancy El-Gamel
Twenty per cent of ground level central Hamilton retail space is empty. Local shop owners are blaming lack of free parking and rising costs, while business leaders are pointing fingers at absentee landlords, sub-standard buildings and an inability to compete with lower rents at The Base.

The Base is New Zealand’s largest shopping Centre based in Te Rapa, 7 km North of Hamilton CBD.

To quantify what the average shopper sees [in the CBD], the Waikato Times counted all ground floor premises in the block within Hood St, Victoria St, Angelsea St and Liverpool St, finding that of 524 premises, the 104 empty ones outnumbered the 67 locally owned and operated stores in the area. […] Hamilton Mayor Julie Hardaker acknowledged the CBD needed desperate attention, and said council was taking a “holistic approach” to the problem. […] “For the city centre to be successful it must be commercially and economically successful and over the last few decades most reports have focused on physical changes, so we have started with an economic analysis and looked at the trend since 2001 in terms of the economy.”
Read more + Video

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Read comments to the article.
How many other places – like Dunedin – mirror Hamilton ?

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Images: Waikato Times/Stuff – Hamilton CBD [screenshots from video]

Dunedin old boys, councillors & staff collude on 5-star accommodation

The following report was tabled at a meeting of the Dunedin City Council on Monday 22 September 2014:

█ Report – Council – 22/09/2014 (PDF, 3.8 MB)
Tourism Dunedin Annual Report

Oh dear, oh dear. Ex Tourism Dunedin chief Hamish Saxton says…. “The Tourism Dunedin report showed Dunedin’s total visitor nights increased 7.4%, to 826,431, in the year to May 2014, with domestic visitors up 6.3% and international visitors up 9.2%.”

Add this next report to bolster confidence and supply for old boy in-groups and the ever pea-brain assortment of city councillors – and the megalomaniac council staff who NEVER waste an opportunity to empire build or focus pressure in pursuit of higher salaried positions:

█ Report – Council – 22/09/2014 (PDF, 271.8 KB)
Growth Assumptions in the Long Term Plan

The message is, since We know grand theft auto already…. “We want CAKE! Want it now!” so, “Let’s be having it, Ratepayers, empty your sorry pockets for Our Edification, Delight and Comfortable Pay Cheques, for We at DCC don’t stand a F***’s chance of ever knowing how to create real jobs in the productive export sector. Give us FIVE STAR, now!!”

Nor was it their business.

### ODT Online Wed, 24 Sep 2014
City needs to offer visitors five-star hotel – report
By Chris Morris
Tourism Dunedin has left a call for more money, a five-star hotel and closer links with Queenstown ringing in the Dunedin City Council’s ears. The comments came from former Tourism Dunedin trustee Rainsford Grubb as he presented the now-defunct entity’s final annual report to the council this week. The report came months after Tourism Dunedin was subsumed by Enterprise Dunedin, an in-house council entity responsible for a broader mix of tourism, events and other activities, on June 30.
Read more

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Who is right?

Comment at ODT Online:

Targeted taxes
Submitted by Stevesone57 on Wed, 24/09/2014 – 11:25am.
….The fact is that motels and hotels in Dunedin have been hovering around 60% occupancy for three years now. Anyone in the industry will tell you this is nothing more than break even. It is clear that this announcement by Mr Grubb is the precursor for targeted [taxes] to promote Dunedin’s wonders. Targeted taxes on businesses already struggling to survive – these include hotels, motels, bars, cafes etc….
Read more

█ Recordings of council meetings are on the DCC YouTube channel.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Doh, low growth for Dunedin

North Dunedin [flickriver.com] re-imaged by whatifdunedin

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### ODT Online Sun, 20 Oct 2013
Census data tests planning assumptions
By Chris Morris
The Dunedin City Council will review some of the assumptions underpinning its planning efforts, after census data revealed slower-than-expected growth in the city. Council city development manager Dr Anna Johnson yesterday told the Otago Daily Times the city’s growth rate was lower than council planning had anticipated. The city’s resident population had increased from 118,683 in 2006 to 120,246 this year, which equated to annual growth of just 0.19%, she said. That was below 2006 expectations, which had anticipated annual growth of 0.4%, she said. ”The growth is slower than was expected or planned for, and it is lower than the estimates that we have been working with.” There was nothing in the data as yet to suggest the council should change urban development policies included in its spatial plan, which anticipated demand for an extra 7600 residential units in the city by 2031, Dr Johnson said.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr