Stupid ORC Bus Hub : DCC notifies requirement for designation #Dunedin

Proposed ORC Bus Hub, Great King St – concept image [supplied]

CALL FOR PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS

DIS-2017-1 – Central City Bus Hub
Open for submissions. Closes 5pm 18 August 2017

Public notice of requirement for a designation
Sections 168 and 169 of the Resource Management Act 1991

The Dunedin City Council has received notice of a requirement for a new designation from the Otago Regional Council.

Notice of Requirement No: DIS-2017-1

The requirement is for: A Central City Bus Hub for Dunedin’s transport network, and includes all buildings, structures and associated facilities and activities for the carrying out of the public transport system by the Otago Regional Council. With the exception of no public parking, the designation will not prevent the use of Great King Street, between Moray Place and St Andrew Street, being used as a public road.

The designation is to provide for the establishment, operation, maintenance and upgrading of the Central City Bus Hub for Dunedin public transport service purposes and will provide public transport services described in the Otago Regional Council’s Public Transport Plan, and to provide for any site works, buildings or structures, integral and ancillary to the Dunedin public transport system, including but not limited to: Bus shelters and seating; timetable and information displays; bus stops; public amenities, including toilets; landscaping including structures; pedestrian footpaths and accessways; drainage; technology; lighting; security; vehicle priority; signage; passenger comfort initiatives and facilities; passenger information facilities; and all other structures and facilities associated with, or incidental to, a comprehensive facility for the performances of functions of the Central City Bus Hub and support of the Dunedin Public Transport Network for the Otago Regional Council.

The nature of the functions is that these activities will initially occur from approximately 05:30am to 12:30am, 7 days a week, year-round.

The sites to which the requirement applies are as follows:
● Great King Street Road Reserve, between Moray Place and St Andrew Street, Dunedin;
● Moray Place Road Reserve (part of);
● 12.4m² (approx.) within 157 St Andrew Street, legally described as Lot 1 DP 486801;
● Two areas within the Countdown car park adjoining Great King Street – one comprising 58.8m² and the second comprising 50.4m² (approx.) legally described as Lots 2 and 3, DP 6552 and Section 29, Town of Dunedin.
● 19.5m² (approx.) within the Countdown car park adjoining Moray Place, legally described as part Sections 27 and 28, Block XVI, Town Survey District;
● 63m² (approx.) within the Community House car park at 301 Moray Place, legally described as part Town Section 26, Block XVI, Town of Dunedin; and
● 60.8m² (approx.) within the Wilsons car park at 30-36 Great King Street, legally described as Lot 2 DP 338932.

The Notice of Requirement, plans showing the extent of the requirement, and the assessment of environmental effects may be inspected at the following locations:
● City Planning Enquiries, Customer Services Centre, Ground Floor, Civic Centre, 50 The Octagon, Dunedin
● The Dunedin Central Public Library
● The Mosgiel Service Centre
● Online

Please contact Paul Freeland on 477 4000 if you have any questions about the Notice of Requirement.

█ Go to this DCC webpage for all the information pertaining to the Notice of Requirement (NoR):
DIS-2017-1 – Central City Bus Hub
Closing date for submissions: Friday 18 August 2017 at 5pm.
http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/your-council/district-plan/district-plan-changes/dis-2017-1-central-city-bus-hub

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█ Supplementary Reading
From the ‘RMA Quality Planning Resource’ (NZ):

Notices of requirement and requiring authorities

To begin the process of designating land, a requiring authority must serve a notice of requirement on the relevant territorial authority (s168 of the RMA) or lodge it with the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) (s145(3)).  A notice of requirement is a proposal for a designation. 

The notice of requirement has an interim effect, in that it protects the land for the designated purpose until the designation is confirmed and included in an operative district plan (s178).  If the designation is confirmed it overrides the provisions of the district plan so the project or the works may be implemented by the requiring authority in accordance with that designation and any conditions attached to it.  However, the underlying plan provisions continue to apply if the land is used for a purpose other than the designated purpose.

When processing a notice of requirement Part 8 of the RMA requires the territorial authority to consider the requirement and any submissions received (if the requirement was notified), and then make a recommendation to the requiring authority. The territorial authority is only able to make a recommendation to the requiring authority and the requiring authority has the final decision on the matter. Refer to the flowchart for steps in the new designation process.

An alternative process is available under Part 6AA of the RMA for notices of requirement that are for proposals of national significance. Sections 198A – 198M of the RMA also provide for the direct referral of notices of requirement to the Environment Court for a decision.  The direct referral provisions under the RMA allow for requiring authorities to request that notified notices of requirement be directly referred to the Environment Court for a decision, instead of a recommendation by a territorial authority and a decision by a requiring authority.

The designation provides for the long-term ‘approval’ of the work. Because details of the work may not be known at the time of lodging the notice of requirement, s176A provides for further detail or subsequent changes and updates to the work through an outline plan. An outline plan is required to be submitted to the territorial authority, showing details of the work or project to be constructed on the designated land.

As for the notice of requirement process, the territorial authority only has a recommendation role for outline plans. The territorial authority is only able to request changes of the requiring authority and cannot turn down an outline plan. 

A notice of requirement and an outline plan describing the works proposed can be served/submitted at the same time. This approach can be helpful to allow the territorial authority to understand the designation, and can speed up the overall process allowing works to begin sooner. Alternatively, the requirement for an outline plan can be waived by the territorial authority if sufficient information was submitted with the notice of requirement.

Read more: http://www.qualityplanning.org.nz/index.php/plan-development-components/designations/overview/notices-of-requirements

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All we want is …. [possibly?]

No highly coloured tarseal or paving materials not in keeping with Dunedin’s built environment.

NO Bus Hub in Great King St.

And….
smaller more frequent shuttle buses, suburban areas properly serviced with well-spaced bus stops and shelters, easy transfer cards, on-board EFTPOS card top-ups ($5 minimum), digital readouts for next bus at all stops, wifi buses, direct pick-up drop-off in George and Princes streets, well serviced peak hours and school runs, bus inspectors, highly trained drivers, mechanically well serviced buses, plenty of mobility access for all comers.

Or to just call an affordable version of Uber or Lyft.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

This post is offered in the public interest.

[whatifdunedin]

Education: Art and Design #UK

UK NSN report responds to the ongoing concern over the decline in the number of young people studying art and design, prompted by statements from numerous industry figures.

Brexit Effect | National Society for Education in Art and Design said art and design in schools was being eroded while the Creative Industries Federation described the failure to educate a new generation of creatives as “economic suicide”.

Art and design can help drive up standards in schools, says UK government
Amy Frearson | 8 February 2017 ● Dezeen
The UK government is urging schools to promote art and design subjects, after a report found that schools with more creative pupils achieve significantly higher grades. Released today, the New Schools Network (NSN) Arts Report reveals that schools with more arts GSCEs per pupil achieve above-average results. This was proven to be the case for schools in deprived areas, as well as those in affluent neighbourhoods. It shows that offering a broad mix of subjects, in addition to those included in the controversial English Baccalaureate (EBacc) system – which favours more traditional subjects like science and history – leads to better performance. At a launch event for the report earlier today, digital and culture minister Matt Hancock said the government is doing all it can to support creative subjects, but it is up to schools to deliver a varied curriculum. “This should not be an argument about a battle between the arts and other subjects, but instead a battle for stronger, better, well-rounded education,” he said. “Ultimately, the best schools in the country do this. They combine excellent cultural education to complement excellence in other academic subjects,” Hancock continued. “This report backs up that analysis. It looks at the data and says, if you want to drive up standards across the board, push your arts and music offer.”
Read more

Note: The English Baccalaureate (EBacc) is a performance measure for schools, awarded when students secure a grade C or above at GCSE level across a core of five academic subjects – english, mathematics, history or geography, the sciences and a language.

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Corned beef at NZ….

Installation view of Povi Christkeke by Michel Tuffery 1999
Education | Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu [christchurchartgallery.org.nz]

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

This post is offered in the public interest.

NZ road deaths [repeat flouting of Road Code] + Self-driving car technology

“It’s horrific. What’s meant to be a festive and family time have been completely shattered by these accidents.” –Greally

### NZ Herald 6:21 AM Wednesday Jan 4, 2017
Holiday road toll ends, 19 dead
Nineteen people lost their lives on New Zealand roads over the Christmas and New Year period. The youngest victim was 2-years-old. The official holiday road toll ended at 6am today. It began on Friday, December 23. Last year’s holiday road toll saw 12 people killed on New Zealand roads, with 71 people seriously injured and 296 minor injuries, according to the Ministry of Transport. […] National road policing manager Steve Greally said earlier the high number of deaths was disappointing and devastating for families.
Read more

█ NZTA Road death statistics

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Published on Dec 13, 2016
Meet the Blind Man Who Convinced Google Its Self-Driving Car Is Finally Ready | WIRED
Google is getting serious about self-driving cars. So serious that it put a legally blind man in one that drove him around safely on his own. The successful trip means that the tech giant can now launch its own self-driving car company, which it’s calling Waymo.

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Consumers will probably get their first taste of automated driving in the backseat of a robo-taxi.

### bloomberg.com ‎3‎ ‎Jan ‎2017‎ ‎1‎:‎01‎ ‎p.m.‎ ‎NZDT
It’s Aye, Robot, as Driverless Cars Finally Steer Near Showrooms
By Keith Naughton and Mark Bergen
● 140 CES exhibitors from Google to Audi seek auto-tech buyers
● Autonomy is ‘next major battlefield’ for global automakers
Car electronics supplier Delphi Automotive Plc went coast-to-coast in 2015 in a self-driving Audi Q5 sport-utility vehicle to prove the autonomous automobile had arrived. Now, Delphi is shifting from stunts to selling. In Las Vegas this week at CES, formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show, the company will give test rides to hundreds of potential customers in driverless Audis over a course of rugged terrain and tunnels. The goal: to walk away from this critical conclave with a handful of hot prospects for its self-driving system. “The last two years at CES have been more about just showcasing the technology and saying, ‘Look what it can do,'” said Glen De Vos, Delphi’s vice president of advanced engineering. “This year, the discussion is all about the path to production.” Self-driving cars are finally making the leap from the lab to the showroom. Tesla Motors Inc., BMW, Ford Motor Co. and Volvo Cars have all promised to have fully autonomous cars on the road within five years. Alphabet Inc. just spun off its Google Self-Driving Car Project, renaming it Waymo, and then promptly unveiled its driverless Chrysler Pacifica minivan and said it’s in discussions to put its technology into Honda Motor Co. models. When CES officially opens Jan. 5, the talk won’t be about proving technology — it will be about selling to automakers, ride-hailing companies, transit services and, ultimately, consumers.
At a show once known for mobile phones and video games, vehicle technology will cover an exhibit space the size of four football fields, some 21 percent more than last year. Some 138 auto-tech exhibitors will all be seeking a piece of the autonomy business that Boston Consulting Group says will increase to $42 billion by 2025 and account for a quarter of global sales by 2035. And since it takes about four years to bring a car to market, now is the time to cut deals with suppliers and tech partners to outfit models with self-driving systems that will debut early next decade.
Read more

█ For a QuickTake on issues surrounding driverless cars, click here.

[click to enlarge]

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

This post is offered in the public interest.

Sea level change : implications for coastal management

Link and Summary received from Rosemary McQueen
Wed, 6 Jul 2016 at 1:54 p.m.

The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition
Commonsense about climate change Link

Two of Our Coalition Members Reveal the True Facts about Sea Levels
Posted Mon, 4 Jul 2016
“In this short and accessible monograph, Willem de Lange and Robert Carter describe and explain sea-level change, including the many remaining uncertainties in our full understanding of what exactly drives this change, and discuss the implications, mainly regarding coastal management. The monograph is intended for policy makers, but it should be informative for any educated reader. De Lange and Carter analyse the causes of sea-level change, and describe how it has been measured – with tide gauges over the past 100 to 150 years and from satellites over the past 30 years. Their key message is to recall that sea-level change is a local phenomenon, with high variability and multiple causes.”
Professor Vincent Courtillot writes this in his foreword to the Global Waming Policy Foundation paper by which our Coalition members, Dr Willem De Lange and the late Professor Bob Carter rebut alarmist propaganda about rises in sea levels and what causes those levels to rise and fall.

█ SEA-LEVEL CHANGE : Living with uncertainty
By Willem P de Lange and Robert M Carter
Foreword by Professor Vincent Courtillot
http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2014/05/Sea-level-report.pdf

SUMMARY [from the paper]

1. Global sea-level corresponds to a notional world-wide average and is determined by the interaction between the volume of the ocean basins, the volume of water that they contain and the effect of Earth’s gravitational field.

2. Change in global sea-level is caused by:
• a change in ocean basin volume, controlled by geological forces
• a change in seawater density, resulting from variations in ocean temperature or salinity;
• the addition or subtraction of water from the ocean by the melting and freezing of glaciers and ice-caps.

Global sea-level is estimated using averaged measurements from a worldwide network of coastal tide-gauges or from satellite-borne instruments. Because they represent a worldwide average, neither of these figures has any useful application to coastal management in specific locations. Instead, a knowledge of local relative sea-level change, as measured at specific coastal locations, is the basis for practical coastal management. Local sea-levels are rising or falling in different parts of the world, depending upon the direction and rate of movement of the underlying land (tectonic change).

3. Sea-level change is mainly a coastal management issue, but the position of sea-level is only one of several important factors that controls the position and changes in the disposition of the shoreline. Other important forces and controls that have to be considered include:
• the rise or fall of the land
• the supply of sediment
• the weather and climate (short and long-term temperature, wind, rainfall)
• the oceans (waves, tides, storms, tsunami)
• erosion and gravitational collapse (for cliffed shorelines).

4. In its natural state, a sedimentary shoreline may shift landwards or seawards by metres to many tens of metres over periods between days and decades. In the past, coastal inhabitants have adapted to such changes, and trying to prevent them by controlling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is neither practical nor cost-effective.

5. Coral atolls depend upon the interaction of a shallow ocean sea floor(generally the top of a submerging volcano), the growth and erosion of a coral reef, and the natural forces of winds, waves and tides. The integrity of an atoll is constantly under threat from entirely natural erosive forces. On top of this, human activities such as sand mining, construction project loading and groundwater withdrawal all cause local lowering of the ground surface, and thereby encourage marine incursion. It is this human interference, in combination with episodic natural hazards like tides and storms, and not global sea-level change that provides the alarming footage of marine flooding on atolls that from time to time appears on television news screens.

6. Changes in sea-level over long periods of time (millions of years) are inferred from geological evidence. These long-term changes suggest that any sea-level rises in response to temperature increases decelerate rather than accelerate over time. Such changes also indicate a maximum rate and duration of natural sea-level rise of about 30 mm/y over periods of a century or so.

7. Based on these geological studies, it appears that slow global sea-level rise– typically less than 10 mm/y – has been taking place over the last 10,000 y. At specific localities, this rising trend interacts with changing land levels due to a range of geological processes and multi-decadal climatic oscillations to produce different patterns of local relative sea-level change throughout the world – in some places rising, in others static and in others falling.

8. The long-term tide-gauge data record a 20th century average global sea-level rise of about +1–2 mm/y. It is established by many studies, too, that over the last 150 years global sea-level has been rising at an average rate of about 1.8 mm/y, which is inferred to represent the slow continuation of a melting of the ice sheets that began about 17,000 years ago.

9. Based on the same records, the IPCC has estimated an average rate of global rise between 1900 and 2000 of 1.6 mm/y (2007; 4th Assessment Report) or between 1901 and 2010 of 1.7±0.2 mm/y (2013; 5th Assessment Report). This global average ignores both short-term and multi-decadal changes in sea-level that are known to be associated with meteorological and oceanographic oscillations, and the local and regional effects of land movement. These additional factors are likely to continue to be important for future sea levels, and so should be considered in conjunction with projections of global sea level. The dominance of such processes in sea-level change means that for environmental management purposes sea-level changes should be assessed at local to regional scales, and not globally.

10. Satellite measurements of global sea-level have only been available since 1992, and the technology is therefore in its infancy. Complex computation and statistical analysis is required to transform raw satellite measurements into a sea-level curve, including the correction and piecing together of records collected over many years by ageing, and ultimately different, satellite vehicles. In recent years, it has been claimed on the basis of satellite measurements that the rate of sea-level rise since 1992 is greater than 3 mm/y – twice that measured using tide-gauge data for earlier periods, although the IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report considers it likely that similar rates occurred between 1930 and 1950. This apples-to-oranges comparison has formed the basis of claims that the rate of rise is accelerating, as required by the global warming hypothesis.

11. Most policy discussions regarding sea-level change are conducted in terms of computer modelled projections, rather than of factual information. In its 4th Assessment Report in 2007, the IPCC used physics-based computer simulations of the Earth and its climate to project a rise of sea-level of between 18 and 59 cm by 2100. The bottom end of this range corresponds with the 18-cm rise in sea-level predicted by empirical models and matches the long-term tide-gauge rate of rise of 1.8 mm/y.

12. Semi-empirical models produce the highest and most alarming estimates of rates of future sea-level change so far published (between 0.8 and 1.8 m by 2100). Strong controversy exists over the likely accuracy and policy usefulness of these results. Given that both empirical and deterministic modelling yield more modest projec- tions of future sea-level, the semi-empirical models can at best only be viewed as a work in progress.

13. The IPCC estimates that 1.1 mm of the 20th century sea-level rise of 1.8 mm/y can be accounted for by the combined effects of continuing ice melt (~0.7 mm/y) and ocean expansion due to warming (~0.4 mm/y), with the remaining ~0.7 mm/y relating to dynamic oceanographic and meteorological factors. The relatively small contribution from melt water indicates that there is no scientific basis for the claim that global warming will imminently melt so much ice that sea levels will rise dra- matically; by 20 ft in the imagination of Al Gore (Gore, 2006) or by 5 m in that of Jim Hansen (Hansen, 2007; Hansen and Sato, 2012).

CONCLUSIONS

Current global sea-level policy, supported by many governments, is to reduce the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in order to slow a global warming that is apparently no longer happening, in a vain attempt to reduce the rate of global sea-level rise. This policy attempts to moderate a theoretical environmental variable, ignores local sea-level and coastal management realities, is ineffectual in significantly reducing sea-level rise and is not cost effective compared to incremental adaptation.

Global sea-level policy as currently practiced by governments is therefore scientifically uncertain and both financially and politically unsustainable.

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the material presented in this paper we recommend the implementation of three policy guidelines.

● Abandonment of ‘let’s stop global sea-level rise’ policies: No justification exists for continuing to base sea-level policy and coastal management regulation upon the outcomes of speculative deterministic or semi-empirical sea-level modelling. Even were the rate of global sea-level change able to be known accurately, the practice of using a notional global rate of change to manage specific coastal locations worldwide is irrational, and should be abandoned.

● Recognition of the local or regional nature of coastal hazard: Most coastal hazard is intrinsically local in nature. Other than periodic tsunami and exceptional storms, it is the regular and repetitive local processes of wind, waves, tides and sediment supply that fashion the location and shape of the shorelines of the world. Yes, local relative sea-level is an important determinant, but in some localities that is rising and in others falling. Accordingly, there is no ‘one size fits all’ sea-level curve or policy that can be applied. Crucially, coastal hazard needs to be managed in the context of regional and local knowledge, using data gathered by site-specific tide-gauges and other relevant instrumentation.

● Use of planning controls that are flexible and adaptive in nature: Many planning regulations already recognize the dynamic nature of shorelines, for example by applying minimum building setback distances or heights from the tidemark. In addition, engineering solutions (groynes, breakwaters, sea-defence walls) are often used in attempts to stabilise a shoreline. To the degree that they are both effective and environmentally acceptable, such solutions should be encouraged. Nevertheless, occasional damage will continue to be imposed from time to time by large storms or other unusual natural events, and that no matter how excellent the pre-existing coastal engineering and planning controls may be. In these circumstances, the appropriate policy should be one of careful preparation for, and adaptation to, hazardous events as and when they occur.

It is the height of folly, and waste of money, to attempt to ‘control’ the size or frequency of damaging natural events by expecting that reductions in human carbon dioxide emissions will moderate climate ‘favourably’ – whether that be putatively sought from a moderation in the frequency and intensity of damaging natural events or by a reduction in the rate of global average sea-level rise itself.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

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

*Image: clipartpal.com – Hippo

DCC —godsakes, how did it get to this? #flood #property damage

ONE YEAR AFTER THE JUNE 2015 FLOOD EVENT………………
“D for prolonged distress”

### ODT Online Fri, 3 Jun 2016
In limbo, sleeping in car (+ video)
By Vaughan Elder
A Green Island mother’s “nightmare” since last June’s flood has culminated in her being separated from her son, homeless and sleeping in her car. Tina Conway has pointed the finger at Dunedin City Council for her plight after staff repeatedly failed to discover a council mains pipe was leaking water on to her property, causing a bank to slip away in the June 3 Dunedin floods. It was almost 10 months after the floods and only after the Earthquake Commission (EQC) called in a private engineering company that the council fixed the pipe at the end of March.
Read more

Otago Daily Times Published on Jun 2, 2016
Dunedin South MP Clare Curran has called on the council to act quickly to remedy the situation.

“The first reaction of the DCC when faced with a situation whereby private property is damaged – particularly by water – is to run for the hills, disclaim any responsibility whatsoever and blame anything else.” Cont/
russandbev at ODT Online

A N N I V E R S A R Y
█ Read more about the aftermath of Dunedin’s June 2015 flood event at ODT tomorrow, Saturday.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Election Year —this post is offered in the public interest.

*Image: cartoonstock.com – Rain_Madness01 | tweaked by whatifdunedin

Dunedin: Erosion issues at St Clair and Ocean Beach

Received from Paul Pope
Fri, 25 Mar 2016 at 3:01 p.m.

█ Message: I filmed this short video the other day and spliced in some information on how the erosion at St Clair actually happens. I don’t often use video, but it looks very compelling. I put it into the Beginners Guide to Coastal Conservation on Facebook yesterday and it’s had more than 7000 views, so people are interested in what’s going on.

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[view full screen]
Paul Pope Published on Mar 24, 2016
The Physics of Erosion
The erosion issues at St Clair Beach and the whole of Ocean Beach in Dunedin have become more and more serious in recent years. Understanding the reasons behind what people see at St Clair is very important. The community need to be able to make informed decisions about these damaging processes.

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Related Posts and Comments:
● 11.9.15 RAPID dune erosion continues —Council doesn’t give a toss
● 19.8.15 Paul Pope’s strategic overview of coastal conservation #Dunedin
● 11.8.15 DCC’s unmanaged retreat for South Dunedin
● 22.7.15 DCC Long Term Plan 2015/16 – 2024/25
10.4.15 DCC: Natural Hazards
28.3.15 DCC Draft Long Term Plan 2015/16 to 2024/25 —Consultation Open
23.11.13 DCC: St Clair esplanade and seawall [public forum] 27 November
18.10.13 DCC: Final vote tally + St Clair boat ramp
18.8.13 South Dunedin and other low lying areas
26.5.13 [bad news] St Clair seawall #FAIL
10.9.12 John Wilson Ocean Drive … reminder to all of DCC incompetence
30.7.12 ORC on hazard risks and land use controls
28.11.11 St Clair seawall and beach access

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

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Infrastructure ‘open to facile misinterpretation’…. or local ignore

Academic Paper/Article via Academia.edu
December 24, 2015

Paradoxical Infrastructures: Ruin, Retrofit and Risk
Cymene Howe – Rice University, Anthropology, Faculty Member
Corresponding Author

Co-Authors: Cymene Howe, Jessica Lockrem, Hannah Appel, Edward Hackett, Dominic Boyer, Randal Hall, Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, Albert Pope, Akhil Gupta, Elizabeth Rodwell, Andrea Ballestero, Trevor Durbin, Farès el-Dahdah, Elizabeth Long, and Cyrus Mody

ABSTRACT
In recent years, a dramatic increase in the study of infrastructure has occurred in the social sciences and humanities, following upon foundational work in the physical sciences, architecture, planning, information science, and engineering. This article, authored by a multidisciplinary group of scholars, probes the generative potential of infrastructure at this historical juncture. Accounting for the conceptual and material capacities of infrastructure, the article argues for the importance of paradox in understanding infrastructure. Thematically the article is organized around three key points that speak to the study of infrastructure: ruin, retrofit, and risk. The first paradox of infrastructure, ruin, suggests that even as infrastructure is generative, it degenerates. A second paradox is found in retrofit, an apparent ontological oxymoron that attempts to bridge temporality from the present to the future and yet ultimately reveals that infrastructural solidity, in material and symbolic terms, is more apparent than actual. Finally, a third paradox of infrastructure, risk, demonstrates that while a key purpose of infrastructure is to mitigate risk, it also involves new risks as it comes to fruition. The article concludes with a series of suggestions and provocations to view the study of infrastructure in more contingent and paradoxical forms.

Introduction
Breakdowns and blackouts, pipeline politics, and new demands upon energy and resources have surfaced infrastructure in surprising ways, igniting conversation about social and material arrangements that are often left submerged, invisible, and assumed. In recent years, we have witnessed a dramatic increase in the study of infrastructure in the social sciences and humanities, following upon foundational work in the physical sciences, architecture, planning, information science, and engineering. While the popular imagination might recognize infrastructure as the mundane mechanisms within, beneath, and supporting the maintenance of quotidian life, many scholars have foregrounded the agency, performativity, and dynamism of infrastructure.

Infrastructure is not inert but rather infused with social meanings and reflective of larger priorities and attentions. To further engage these novel lines of inquiry, a group of scholars gathered at Rice University’s Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Sciences for an extended roundtable discussion. We came from a variety of academic institutions and positions in the academy (ranging from senior scholars to PhD candidates), and our group reflected a diverse range of disciplinary backgrounds (American studies, anthropology, architecture, history, science and technology studies, and sociology). Our objective was to break down some of the scaffolding that upholds disciplinary boundaries. To embrace a starkly infrastructural metaphor, we were interested in “bridgework”, not just to move from point A to point B, but to hold us in suspension for a time so that we might inspect the mechanisms that drive our intellectual work and scholarship.

Infrastructure, which epitomizes the conjunction of material forms, expertise, social priorities, cultural expectations, aesthetics, and economic investments, seemed to us to be the ideal rubric through which to enrich our thinking, as well as a social object that necessitates a multidisciplinary approach. A collaborative conversation would help us to disentangle theories, concepts, and methods from their usual paradigms, permitting them to “recombine” in novel ways (Hackett and Parker 2014, 12). Our conversation was animated, in part, by other “turns” in the humanities and social sciences, including new materialisms, posthumanisms, and ontological approaches. Walking through the dynamic scholarship on infrastructure that is being published in the human sciences, we were struck with the definitional capacity of the term itself. Infrastructure is material (roads, pipes, sewers, and grids); it is social (institutions, economic systems, and media forms); and it is philosophical (intellectual trajectories: dreamt up by human ingenuity and nailed down in concrete forms).

Infrastructure has a capaciousness and scope that makes it both an infinitely useful concept and a concept that is open to facile misinterpretation or to being encumbered by overuse.

Our purpose was not to produce yet another definition of infrastructure (although at the end of this essay we do offer a few potential classifications). Instead we gave our attention to questions such as “What is generative about thinking with and through infrastructures at this historical juncture?” And “How can the multiple and diverse understandings of infrastructure across the human sciences mutually inform and enhance one another?” Simply put, we wanted to unravel “why now?” and “where do we go from here?” Our hope was to work toward “explication” (Latour 1993; Sloterdijk 2009), knowing that infrastructure has moved from the background to the foreground, while remaining intent on questioning why that is so. This collective essay gathers the themes and insights that echoed throughour conversation. These issues were resonant points of return because they revealed the relational and ambiguous elements of infrastructure to produce contradictions and unevenly felt consequences in the lives and places they contact. We have codified these apparent paradoxes, broadly, into topical domains of ruins, retrofit, and risk.

To read this article and other academic papers subscribe to Academia.edu (Weekly Digest).

[floodofideas.org.au]

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image (top): openspaceconsult.com – infrastructure development [tweaked by whatifdunedin]

Dubai skyscrapers | Martin Aircraft Company-designed jetpacks #NZ

Chief TV Published on Dec 31, 2015
Dubai Fire Address Hotel – Dubai Hotel On Fire Before New Years Eve Fireworks – 2015

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### dezeen.com 31 December 2015
Huge fire breaks out at Atkins-designed Dubai skyscraper
On New Year’s Eve, a fire engulfed The Address Downtown Dubai hotel tower. Burning debris was seen falling from The Address, designed by international architecture and engineering firm Atkins. The skyscraper occupies a site close to the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, which hosted a massive fireworks display despite the nearby blaze. The 302-metre-tall, 63-storey Address tower was completed in 2008, and is currently the 19th tallest building in the Emirate. The fire engulfed around 20 floors of the building. The blaze was contained to the outside of the building. Internal sprinkler systems prevented it from spreading to the interior.

Starting in 2016, the Emirate plans to use jetpacks to reach people and deliver equipment during skyscraper fires.

█ Developed by New Zealand manufacturer Martin Aircraft Company, the jetpacks are being tailored to meet the needs of firefighters and rescue workers, including allowing them to be operated hands-free in hover mode. This will make it easier for firefighters to carry equipment or assess heat sources using thermal imaging cameras. “Dubai is leading the world in high-rises, and sometimes we have challenges or difficulties reaching those buildings,” Dubai’s Civil Defence chief Ali Hassan Almutawa told the Khaleej Times. “Sometimes we also find it difficult to communicate with people in those high-rises, especially when people are panicking from windows or balconies.”
Read more

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BACK STORY

Dubai skyline during Torch fire February 2015 [via dezeen.com]

[As at Nov 2015] Dubai is home to 911 high-rise buildings, 88 of which are taller than 180 metres (591 ft). Burj Khalifa, by Chicago office Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, is the world’s tallest structure at 828 metres (2,716.5 ft).

### dezeen.com 13 November 2015
Dubai to fight fires in world’s tallest skyscrapers using jetpacks
Dubai, home to the world’s tallest skyscraper, will use jetpack-equipped firefighters in high-rise emergencies as early as next year. A fleet of emergency-service jetpacks will be delivered to the Dubai Civil Defence in 2016, according to the Khaleej Times. Specially trained firefighters will use the jetpacks to tackle flames in some the city’s tallest buildings. The news comes months after fire tore through one of the world’s tallest residential structures located in the United Arab Emirates city. The fire broke out on the 50th floor of the 79-storey Torch, a 336-metre-high skyscraper, in February.

“In an emergency situation, we can’t use the elevators and have to depend on firefighters physically climbing ladders,” said Dubai’s Civil Defence chief Ali Hassan Almutawa. “With this we can lift equipment for our firefighters.”

“There will now be a new generation of firefighters with this,” said Martin Aircraft Company CEO Peter Coker, who went on to explain how “easy” the flying machines are to operate. “It’s got a fly-by-wire system that has a sort of flight computer, so the aircraft is very stable,” he said. “If you let go of everything, the aircraft will come to a hover.”

Manned test flights of a Martin Aircraft Company-designed jetpack were first approved in 2013. The company claimed its design was the world’s first practical jetpack.

“In a few years they will likely be used by customers in a very controlled environment, and we’ll probably have situations in which we create clubs for people to go and fly the jetpacks,” said Coker.

The use of jetpack technology in the United Arab Emirates isn’t restricted to its emergency services. Earlier this month, footage emerged of two jetpack-equipped daredevils flying alongside a passenger plane over Dubai’s landmarks to promote the country’s Emirates airline company.
Read more

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Clarification: The following footage, worth watching, doesn’t involve Martin Aircraft Company-designed jetpack componentry. Visit MAC’s website (link given above) to view their practical jetpack units.

Aeronauticator Published on May 14, 2015
Yves Rossy & Vince Reffet – Birdmans Fly over Dubai Sky
Flying like a bird is always human’s dream. And the dream comes true.
Join Jetman Yves Rossy and his protege, Jetman Vince Reffet as they explore the limits in the city of dreams. “The real dream is to be completely free.”

XDubai Published on Nov 4, 2015
Emirates: #HelloJetman
Armed with unguarded ambition and the vision to push boundaries beyond the unthinkable, Jetman Dubai and Emirates A380 take to the skies of Dubai for an exceptional formation flight. A carefully choreographed aerial showcase, conducted over the Palm Jumeirah and Dubai skyline, involving the world’s largest passenger aircraft and the experienced Jetman Dubai pilots Yves Rossy and Vince Reffet. Over the last three months, Emirates and the Jetman Dubai teams worked closely to diligently plan and coordinate every detail of this project. Featuring an all Original Soundtrack by Erik Groysman – “Flight”

Tourism and Events Published on Nov 7, 2015
Emirates HelloJetman Emirates A380 and Jetman Dubai Formation Flight Emirates Airline

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

RAPID dune erosion continues —Council doesn’t give a toss

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Alex Gilks replies to article St Clair dunes ‘in no danger’ (ODT 3.9.15)

Published at ODT Online
Wed, 9 Sep 2015

Your say: Urgent action is needed
By Alex Gilks
Wayne Stephenson’s comments here, assuming they were reported accurately, seem quite a way off the mark. I’m no expert, but grew up near the dunes, and walk on the beach often.
I visited this morning, and the big sea earlier this week has carved off more of the top of the dune. The two big pines are about 5m and 10m from the edge of the erosion. Bill Brown is right: urgent action is needed. Big-scale protection at the bottom.
Putting aside the throwaway comment about the asteroid, here are the troubling things about this article:

• ‘no risk to property this year’ – this super short-term thinking should be criticized

• ‘if the dune’s foot was staying in place’ – the dune’s foot is absolutely not staying in place! The immediate reason for the dramatic erosion is that the toe of the dune has been completely hammered since the sand sausages were ruined. How can he not see that? Is he not actually visiting the site?

• the idea that the enemy is ‘winter’s storms’, and the implication that it will be ok again until next winter. Where does this come from? The south coast can get powerful southerlies at any time of year. Is there some data that you can use to show the frequency and time of year of southerly/easterly storms and high tides?

• sand sausages and sand replenishment as interim solutions, before ‘more permanent features in coming years’. Shouldn’t this receive more criticism? The previous sands sausages and sand replenishment worked for only what, a handful of years? Wouldn’t you just urgently undertake some more long-term solution?

For this to get real I think decision-makers need to walk along the ridge track from the Kettle Park area, see the shifting edge and the remaining area at the apex of the dune.
I’d take a botanist along too, to get a good gauge on the age of the trees that have been uprooted. The bigger ones must be 50-80 years old, yet you hear some people saying things like ‘this happened in the 70s/90s/a few years back’.
No. We need to get past this complacent idea that this is a seasonal thing, that it’ll replenish itself soon and will start working normally again in the near future.
ODT Link

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Received from Hype O’Thermia
Tue, 8 Sep 2015 at 10:36 a.m.

The sea does not adapt to humans

Increased storms and extreme weather – get off yer bike! Just for fun I googled “British houses that fell into the sea”, not a helluva rigorous search……..

One dark night in 1664, while local people were attending a wake, the whole village of Runswick slipped into the sea…
Thankfully, all the villagers escaped but by morning there was only one house left standing… the house of the dead man!
http://www.visitengland.com/experience/discover-village-fell-sea

As late as 1817 when George Young, the Whitby historian, wrote of the incident, articles including a silver spoon and coins which had been carried from the rubble by the tide were still being washed back.
http://www.chrisscottwilson.co.uk/runswick-bay/4551457861

It wasn’t always so peaceful – one night in 1664 the entire village slid into the sea! Returning from a wake, one of the villagers noticed the steps of his house slipping away beneath his feet. He gave the alarm and most of the village fled to safety. By morning only one house remained standing- the house of the deceased man. The village was rebuilt further around the shore but land slippage continued to be a problem. In 1970 a new sea wall was finally built, thankfully securing the village’s future.
http://www.simonseeks.com/travel-guides/hands-all-those-whove-heard-runswick-bay__167571

In medieval times, when Dunwich was first accorded representation in Parliament, it was a flourishing port and market town about thirty miles from Ipswich. However, by 1670 the sea had encroached upon the town, destroying the port and swallowing up all but a few houses so that nothing was left but a tiny village. The borough had once consisted of eight parishes, but all that was left was part of the parish of All Saints, Dunwich – which by 1831 had a population of 232, and only 44 houses (“and half a church”, as Oldfield recorded in 1816).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunwich_(UK_Parliament_constituency)

Robin Hood’s Bay, North Yorkshire
The raging storms have taken their toll, claiming many buildings as the limestone cliffs erode. In 1780, 22 cottages fell into the sea. Today a rock seawall helps protect the picturesque village.
http://www.britainexpress.com/villages/robinhood.htm

[ends]

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Related Posts and Comments:
● 19.8.15 Paul Pope’s strategic overview of coastal conservation #Dunedin
● 11.8.15 DCC’s unmanaged retreat for South Dunedin
● 22.7.15 DCC Long Term Plan 2015/16 – 2024/25
10.4.15 DCC: Natural Hazards
28.3.15 DCC Draft Long Term Plan 2015/16 to 2024/25 —Consultation Open
23.11.13 DCC: St Clair esplanade and seawall [public forum] 27 November
18.10.13 DCC: Final vote tally + St Clair boat ramp
18.8.13 South Dunedin and other low lying areas
26.5.13 [bad news] St Clair seawall #FAIL
10.9.12 John Wilson Ocean Drive … reminder to all of DCC incompetence
30.7.12 ORC on hazard risks and land use controls
28.11.11 St Clair seawall and beach access

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

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Images: dunedinisforlovers.blogspot.co.nz – Majestic Mansions (April 2010); world50th.files.wordpress.com – dunes (February 2015)

Harbourside: Official information request to Dunedin City Council

Note: LGOIMA official information requests can be emailed direct to officialinformation @dcc.govt.nz

DCC Webmap – Upper Harbour Central Dunedin JanFeb 2013

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From: Elizabeth Kerr
Sent: Monday, 7 September 2015 2:30 p.m.
To: Sandy Graham [DCC]
Cc: Elizabeth Kerr; Grace Ockwell [DCC]; Sue Bidrose [DCC]
Subject: LGOIMA Information Request

Dear Sandy

Re: Urban Design and Envisioning for Dunedin Harbourside

I note the following media items:

● ODT (19.8.15) Cull to push for more city hotels [hotel accommodation]
● ODT (20.8.15) Under-fire Cull stands by comments [hotel accommodation]
● ODT (26.8.15) – A Mackay, Opinion Harbourside development adds vibrancy
● ODT (31.8.15) – P Entwisle, Opinion Extraordinary works inspired by nature [Van Brandenburg]
● ODT (5.9.15) Waterfront the next big thing? [bridge, aquarium, ORC headquarters, hotels etc]
● ODT (5.9.15) Harbourside views in conflict
● ODT (5.9.15) ORC denies hindering development
● ODT (7.9.15) Vogel Street Party spreads its wings [Van Brandenburg ‘hotel’ model]
● ODT (7.9.15) Conferences ‘great’ boost for city

●● DCC media release (27.8.15) Building stronger local government connections with China

●● Indications are that DCC wants Otago Rowing Club to relocate from their premises to a site of the DCC’s choosing.

I wish to formally request ALL reports and visionary/guiding documents and or statements/statements of proposal or intent that are currently being used by Dunedin City Council in consultation with other parties (real and potential – local, national and international) be they:

focus groups, steering groups, working parties, development partners, surveyors, designers/architects, resource management specialists, investors, project facilitators, project managers, University of Otago, Otago Polytechnic, Otago Chamber of Commerce and or other – to ‘shape and envision’ the future development of Dunedin Harbourside in the urban area that extends from:

Otago Boat Harbour and its vicinity (includes Industrial 1 zone, Stadium zone, Port 2 zone) to the area zoned for mixed use south of Dunedin’s Steamer Basin (Harbourside zone) and further south to Portsmouth Drive (Industrial 1 zone); including connections to existing precincts TH12, TH13, TH05, TH04, TH03 and TH02.

Any corresponding information and explanation that derives from the, to be publicly notified (this month?), second generation plan (2GP) for these city blocks and foreshore area is also requested.

I look forward to prompt receipt of all available information in electronic format.

Regards

Elizabeth Kerr
[Dunedin North]

——————

From: Sandy Graham [DCC]
Sent: Monday, 7 September 2015 2:42 p.m.
To: Elizabeth Kerr
Cc: Grace Ockwell [DCC]; Sue Bidrose [DCC]
Subject: RE: LGOIMA Information Request

Dear Elizabeth

Thanks for your very detailed LGOIMA request which I have forwarded to the officialinformation @dcc.govt.nz. Your request will be processed under the terms of LGOIMA and a response will be provided as soon as practicable but in any event within 20 working days.

Regards
Sandy

[DCC Group Manager Corporate Services]

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
[it’s OK, not holding my breath for too much public disclosure]

Paul Pope’s strategic overview of coastal conservation #Dunedin

Received from Paul Pope
Wed, 19 Aug 2015 at 10:52 a.m.

█ Message: I see sand dunes and erosion are a hot topic on the What if? website. I thought I would send you a submission I made to the City Council on Ocean Beach Domain in 2008/2009 which gives a detailed strategic overview of coastal issues and provides a basis for a variety of solutions to a number of problems including land occupation. Also I have created a Facebook page under my personal account called: The beginners guide to coastal conservation.
I created it to provide people with information on coastal issues.

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[screenshot]

█ Download: Paul Pope: Ocean Beach Domain Submission (PDF, 1 MB)

—

Related Post and Comments:
● 11.8.15 DCC’s unmanaged retreat for South Dunedin
● 22.7.15 DCC Long Term Plan 2015/16 – 2024/25
18.7.15 DCC Cycleways: SEEING RED, apology NOT accepted
14.7.15 DCC strategies needed like a hole in the head
12.6.15 Fairfax: DCC has no insurance cover for flood-damaged roads
5.6.15 WEATHER is not climate change; this is not the 100-year flood
4.6.15 Exchange makeover —or pumps and pipe renewals, um
3.6.15 Civil Defence response to Dunedin FLOODING
10.4.15 DCC: Natural Hazards
28.3.15 DCC Draft Long Term Plan 2015/16 to 2024/25 —Consultation Open
14.10.14 ORC: New strategic plan fosters Otago prosperity
12.9.14 ORC: City bus services, submissions
10.12.13 ORC restructures directorates
23.11.13 DCC: St Clair esplanade and seawall [public forum] 27 November
18.10.13 DCC: Final vote tally + St Clair boat ramp
18.8.13 South Dunedin and other low lying areas
26.5.13 [bad news] St Clair seawall #FAIL
26.2.13 DCC binge spending alert: Proposed South Dunedin cycle network
10.9.12 John Wilson Ocean Drive … reminder to all of DCC incompetence
30.7.12 ORC on hazard risks and land use controls
7.6.12 Dunedin stormwater: more differences between ORC and DCC
28.11.11 St Clair seawall and beach access
25.11.11 South Dunedin and other flood zones
7.12.09 Coastal protection zones
14.11.09 From the log books of a twenty-year distress #DCC
24.8.09 1. STS response – appeal 2. Coastal protection – comments

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

DCC’s unmanaged retreat for South Dunedin #naturalhazards

█ SOME BUILDINGS NOW JUST 12M FROM DUNE’S FACE

Bill Brown, who initially raised his concerns in the Otago Daily Times last month, feared no urgency had been shown by council staff since then.

Spring’s king tides were still to come and could bring dramatic further erosion, he said in his written submission.

### ODT Online Tue, 11 Aug 2015
Disappearing dunes ‘an immediate problem’
By Craig Borley
Dunes along Dunedin’s Ocean Beach have receded nearly 9m in the past four weeks and will continue to disappear unless immediate action is taken, a St Clair resident told the Dunedin City Council yesterday …. [Bill Brown] took those concerns to the council’s community and environment committee, where he presented several aerial photographs showing the extent of recent erosion.
Read more

● ODT: ORC has role to play
Responsibility for erosion repairs at Dunedin’s Ocean Beach may not lie solely with the Dunedin City Council, its community and environment committee heard yesterday

● ODT: Erosion problem for rugby club
The Dunedin Rugby Football Club has made no decision on where its future lies but its training lights have been out of use because of costal erosion and sand is encroaching on to its main ground.

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### ODT Online Fri, 10 Jul 2015
Beach erosion: ‘For God’s sake, it’s time to take action’
By Craig Borley
Permanently fix the erosion of St Clair’s sand dunes or give up on most of South Dunedin – there are no other options, a St Clair resident believes. Heavy seas in the past month have washed out several metres of sand dunes.
Read more

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St Clair Beach / Esplanade
(top) wikimedia.org – historical view | uniquelynz.com – 2014 view

### ODT Online
Sea wall plan ‘not about savings’
By Chris Morris on Mon, 24 Nov 2014
A squeeze on Dunedin City Council finances is not behind a push to defer multimillion-dollar options to protect the St Clair sea wall, Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull insists. A council staff report recommends any plans for major capital works – such as a groyne to protect the sea wall and properties behind it – be put on hold.
Read more

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Managed retreat….

### ODT Online Thu, 23 Feb 2012
Engineer says let erosion take South Dunedin
By Chris Morris
Allowing coastal erosion to reclaim Kettle Park should be the start of a wider retreat from South Dunedin, a Dunedin City Council hearings committee has heard. The call came from Sustainable Dunedin City co-chairman Phillip Cole – a former civil engineer of 31 years’ experience – as the committee considered a second day of submissions on its draft management plan for Ocean Beach.
Read more

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DCC Webmap – South Dunedin Jan/Feb 2013 [click to enlarge]

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DCC Natural Hazard Maps
Note: These maps are DRAFT only. The boundaries of hazard areas and hazard risk classification may be subject to change based on consultation feedback and further assessment ahead of notification. We strongly encourage feedback on any adjustments that may be required.
You also can use the interactive District plan map in the related information section, to see the current District Plan zoning, and the potential 2GP zoning, including the proposed hazard overlay zones, for your property

██ http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/whats-on/2gp/natural-hazards-phase/natural-hazard-maps

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The maps identified “extreme risk” land in red, which some Dunedin homeowners had “instantly associated with red-zoning in Christchurch”. –Sally Dicey, DCC policy planner

### ODT Online Thu, 25 Sep 2014
Concerns raised over natural hazards plan
By Chris Morris
Homeowners worried about being left in a Christchurch-style red zone – at least on paper – are calling for changes to the Dunedin City Council’s natural hazards plan. Their concerns come as council staff wade through nearly 200 submissions received since the council’s plan to tighten its grip on some city properties, to better protect against natural hazards, was announced in June.
Read more

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### ODT Online Mon, 12 Jan 2009
Council weighs costly Esplanade options
By Chris Morris
The Dunedin City Council is weighing several “quite expensive” options aimed at preventing improvements to the Esplanade, at St Clair, crumbling in the next big storm. Parts of the Esplanade upgrade, which has so far cost more than $6 million, have had repeated structural problems since being largely completed in 2004.
Read more

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### ODT Online Fri, 19 Sep 2014
ODT: 100 Years Ago
St Clair to St Kilda esplanade proposed –ODT, 19.9.1914
The Amenities Committee of the Dunedin Expansion League is displaying a laudable energy in urging upon the Ocean Beach Domain Board the desirability of adopting a scheme for the construction of an esplanade along the sea-front from St Clair to St Kilda. Plans have been secured from the city engineer, and the Committee has fortified itself by obtaining a report upon Mr McCurdie’s proposals from the engineer of the Harbour Board, the advice of a marine engineer being justly considered to be of importance in connection with such an undertaking.
Read more

—

Related Posts and Comments:
10.4.15 DCC: Natural Hazards
10.12.13 ORC restructures directorates
23.11.13 DCC: St Clair esplanade and seawall [public forum] 27 November
18.10.13 DCC: Final vote tally + St Clair boat ramp
26.5.13 [bad news] St Clair seawall #FAIL
10.9.12 John Wilson Ocean Drive … reminder to all of DCC incompetence
30.7.12 ORC on hazard risks and land use controls
28.11.11 St Clair seawall and beach access
7.12.09 Coastal protection zones
14.11.09 From the log books of a twenty-year distress #DCC
24.8.09 1. STS response – appeal 2. Coastal protection – comments

—

Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Industrial Heritage Save: Cowes Hammerhead crane

Cowes Hammerhead crane at J S White Shipyard, Thetis Road

The 80 ton giant cantilever crane built of cast iron with a square tower of three stages with its base embedded in concrete was completed in 1911 by British firm Babcock and Wilcox.

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via Twitter

Cowes Isle of Wight @cowesofficial Long over-due repairs to the iconic Cowes Hammerhead crane have been announced by the Isle of Wight Council. fb.me/1qTwdPn6v 24/12/14 12:38:54 a.m.

IOWCouncil Official @iwight Repair works to Cowes Hammerhead Crane to begin in March. Full details at iwight.com/news/Hammerhead-Crane-repair-works-to-begin pic.twitter.com/K57leaER1h 23/12/14 10:24:23 p.m.

TheVictorianSociety @thevicsoc Cowes Hammerhead crane named in Victorian Society’s Top Ten List of Most Endangered Buildings shar.es/1moLcS 9/10/14 4:12:22 a.m.

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### onthewight.com Tuesday, 23 Dec 2014 9:35am
Isle of Wight News
Council make active moves to save important Island heritage
By Sally Perry
Repair works to secure the long-term future of the Cowes Hammerhead Crane are to begin in the new year after funding was received from English Heritage. Well done to all involved in moving this forward. The Cowes Hammerhead Crane is on English Heritage’s ‘at risk’ register and the organisation has put forward £76,000 to cover the costs of repairs to the famous structure. The council has appointed a specialist firm to carry out the works, which are due to begin in March 2015. The works will mainly see the corroded sections of steel from the crane’s tower replaced, with all new steel receiving a coat of paint. […] Clare Charlesworth, heritage at risk principal advisor for English Heritage, said: “Our grant towards the repair of the Hammerhead Crane means this nationally important piece of industrial heritage is one step closer to coming off the at risk register.”
Read more

****

Only remaining pre-WWI hammerhead crane
The giant cantilever crane was built within the first decade of these cranes’ development and is the only remaining pre-WWI hammerhead crane in England.

### onthewight.com Wednesday, 8 Oct 2014 8:07am
Isle of Wight News
Cowes Hammerhead crane named in Victorian Society’s Top Ten List of Most Endangered Buildings
By Joe O’Donnell
Last year the iconic giant cantilever crane in Cowes – used for the production of naval warships – was named Most at Risk by English Heritage, today it has been added to the Victorian Society’s Top Ten List of Most Endangered Buildings. […] Cowes’ industrial past is epitomised by shipbuilder J.S. White’s 80 ton hammerhead crane – installed to increase capacity for the production of naval warships. One of these, HMS Cavalier, is preserved at Chatham Dockyard as a memorial to the 143 British destroyers and over 11,000 men lost at sea during WWII. […] Earlier this year, Isle of Wight Council issued an urgent works notice to the crane’s owner after the crane was found to be structurally unsound. The owner is now disputing the urgent works notice but we urge the Council to continue to press to secure the future of this industrial landmark.
Read more

[click to enlarge]

█ English Heritage List entry – No. 1390949 (history and description)

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Images: Cowes Hammerhead crane – (from top) cowes.co.uk | iwradio.co.uk | staticflickr.com [6938825525_abb3906851_z] | woottonbridgeiow.org.uk (mixed media to b/w by whatifdunedin) | cowes.shalfleet.net (1950)

Singapore National Stadium: No fuss ‘Olympian’ $1 billion plug-in

█ More views at Google Images
[search Singapore Sports Hub or Singapore National Stadium]

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Icon 137 Sport | November 2014 pp 068-075
International Design, Architecture & Culture

Open goal: Singapore National Stadium
By Owen Pritchard

Singapore’s new National Stadium has the world’s largest single-span dome. And by leaving it open at one end, its designers have given the multi-purpose pitch one of the most beautiful backdrops in sport.

Since 1965, the building that has the largest single-span dome in the world has always been a sports stadium. This year the National Stadium of Singapore claims that title, with a diameter of 312m and a height of 80m. The stadium is at the heart of the new Singapore Sports Hub, a 35ha redevelopment of a former airfield that will serve professional sportspeople and the general public alike. The development comprises the national stadium, Kenzo Tange’s 1989 Singapore Indoor Stadium (SIS), two sports arenas, an aquatics centre, a watersports centre, 41,000sq m of retail and waterfront, a visitor centre, sports library, museum and a rail station.

With an investment of over 1 billion US dollars from the Singapore government and the client who will run the facility, the development is an Olympian achievement without the fuss of having to host a sporting mega-event.

The arena offers a remarkable number of configurations in the seating arrangements, as well as cooling and the ability to open and close the roof, all of which make it suitable for a number of occasions – be it a football tournament, cricket match or national parade. “We were given the most amazing site you could be given on the waterfront in Singapore and an ambitious and visionary brief from the client,” says Clive Lewis, an associate at Arup Associates who led the design of the stadium and worked on the construction with Aecom and local firm DP Architects.

The Sports Hub was proposed in 2000, when the old Kallang stadium was declared unfit for purpose. The competition for the complex was launched in 2006. “The government wanted to know what the right thing for Singapore was,” says Lewis. “Did it want to spread out its sports facilities? Or put them all in one location?”

It is the dome that anchors the Sports Hub to its site. It has a powerful presence, particularly looking towards the end that opens out to the city when each side of the ETFE roof is clasped shut. “The location next to Tange’s indoor stadium was a key decision,” Lewis says. “We were creating a landmark building, it had to have a presence from the city, but respect the Tange building. I think that the inverted peak of the SIS and the dome sit perfectly together.” Lewis and his team have certainly taken the stadium’s neighbour into account: both buildings draw from a material palette that includes concrete, aluminium and tiered greenery around the plinth. But where Tange’s building is solid and mute, a passive and imposing presence on the skyline, the new stadium is inviting – from the tiered canvas canopies that cover the concourse to the vast opening that frames the city and the massive LED lighting system across the surface of the dome that lights up the sweltering skies at night. Covering some 20,000sq m, it is the largest addressable LED screen in the world. “We never set out to design such a massive dome,” reflects Lewis. “Once we had made the decision to do so, a lot of things began to make sense. We could really make the project work.”

[click to enlarge]

Inside the stadium, the structure that supports the external skin and the ETFE pillows that open and close to the heavens dominates. This structure is symmetrical and loops and crosses itself in a manner that conveys how the substantial loads are transferred to the two-storey plinth on which the stadium rests. “The delay in this project meant that we could refine the structure to make it as efficient as possible,” Lewis says. “We worked with about a 40 per cent penalty, so if you added ten kilos to the weight of the shell, you would have to increase the weight of the structure by 4 kilos. This led to the decision to use the pillows on the roof— not only would they filter the natural light, but they’re light and flexible, which helped optimise the structure of the trusses.” There are 20,000 steel members in the roof, and each truss that arks over the pitch tapers from 5m deep at its zenith to 2m at the point of contact with the plinth. “The opportunity with a dome this size is that it adds an intensity to the structure,” Lewis says. “It is a part of the event.”

The brief stipulated that the bowl within the stadium had to be movable and allow football, rugby and athletics to be played on the pitch. “We decided to add cricket into the mix,” Lewis says. “There are so many cricket-crazy nations within a four-hour flight we thought that it would provide an extra opportunity.”

[click to enlarge]

******

The Singapore Sports Hub is the next piece of the “plug in” approach to development in Singapore. Since the Jackson plan, conceived in 1822 when Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore, returned to the settlement and found himself displeased with the way the colony was developing, Singapore has tried to form a coherent urban strategy to manage growth. Currently the country has a population of just over 5 million, but wants grow to over 6 million. This 20 per cent swell will assure its economic position as the Switzerland of South-east Asia, but it is being managed to ensure the growth of other activities besides commerce. The development of Singapore has been more measured than, say, that of Dubai or Qatar; there is a quality to the developments that are being realised – including noticeably eye-catching contributions, such as Moshe Safdie’s Marina Bay Sands resort, OMA’s Interlace housing complex or Wilkinson Eyre’s park, Gardens by the Bay. The Singapore Sports Hub and the national stadium are an extension of this controlled, but still ostentatious, masterplan.

At the last Olympics, Singapore competed nine events, picking up two bronze medals for table tennis. The national football team is ranked 155th in the world, the rugby team 58th. So why build a state-of-the-art stadium in a country not known for its sporting prowess? The purpose, Lewis argues, is wider than that. “We have created the largest covered civic space in Singapore,” he says. The Sports Hub is intended to be a new piece of the city where the people can take part in sport themselves. Around the exterior of the bowl, still under the canopy of the dome, is a running track that will be open to the public, and the pools and courts will be available throughout the year, except when they are being used for competition. And that’s not to say that Singapore does not excel at hosting sporting events – the Formula 1 street race is one of the most popular meets on the calendar, and the nation has successfully held the Youth Olympics and will host the South-east Asian Games in 2015.

In his commentary for Hubert Aquin’s film Le sport et les hommes (1961), Roland Barthes said, “It must be remembered that everything happening to the player also happens to the spectator. But whereas in theatre the spectator is only a voyeur, in sport he is a participant, an actor.” Sport, for many, is an opportunity to indulge in a fanatical desire for victory fuelled by nonsensical, almost primal, allegiances. Stadiums are the ultimate container for outpourings of emotion, tempered (just) by the rules of the game being played in the centre of the bowl. The best national stadiums are steeped in history: they are the backdrops to events that embed the location in a collective consciousness. Events such as the Olympics and the football World Cup provide an opportunity for such moments, but Singapore is still waiting to host a mega-event of its own. For now, Arup Associate’s accomplished new stadium will have to wait.

██ Read full article at iconeye.com

[click to enlarge]

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Websites seriously worth a look….

█ Arup Associates http://www.arupassociates.com/en/
Our world-leading architects and engineers work together in one studio, collaborating as genuine equals on every project. This fusion of ideas helps us create architecture that challenges conventions, setting new standards that shape the future of buildings. Arup Associates prioritise research as a driver of design. Arup (officially Arup Group Limited) is a multinational professional services firm headquartered in London, UK which provides engineering, design, planning, project management and consulting services for all aspects of the built environment. The firm is present in Africa, the Americas, Australasia, East Asia, Europe and the Middle East, and has over 11,000 staff based in 92 offices across 42 countries.

█ Aecom http://www.aecom.com/
What sets us apart is our collaborative way of working globally and delivering locally. A trusted partner to our clients, we draw together teams of engineers, planners, architects, landscape architects, environmental specialists, economists, scientists, consultants, as well as cost construction, project and program managers dedicated to finding the most innovative and appropriate solutions to create, enhance and sustain the world’s built, natural and social environments. From transportation, energy and water systems to enhancing environments and creating new buildings and communities, our vision remains constant — to make the world a better place. Listed on the Fortune 500 as one of America’s largest companies, Aecom’s employees now serve clients in more than 150 countries around the world.

█ DP Architects http://www.dpa.com.sg/
DP Architects, formed shortly after Singapore’s national independence in 1965, has designed many of the country’s most important public projects. Each of these has played a critical role in shaping Singapore’s civic urban landscape and downtown core, by linking spaces of the city in the formation of a continuous urban fabric. These sites serve as social and cultural anchors for Singapore and as public nodes of human density that have contributed greatly to the city’s success. As a practice evolving contiguously with Singapore as a global city, DPA’s local role is as a practice ingrained with a special understanding of regional progress and needs. DPA applies this regional knowledge – from aspects of climate to social and economic factors that contribute to a city’s long-term health – to its projects throughout Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The firm’s recent architectural works are some of the largest of their type in the world: The Dubai Mall at 550,000 square metres is a ‘city within a city’ hosting programmes of shopping, entertainment and leisure, and was in 2013 the world’s most visited leisure destination with 75 million visitors.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Images (from top): Singapore National Stadium via
expatliving.sg | blog.bouygues-construction.com | xcite.fun.net
Sports Hub under construction via tinypic.com
Stadium interior via dragages.com
Stadium photograph via straitstimes.com
Covered concourse detail via cavinteo.blogspot.com
Exterior detail via archdaily.net
Interior trusses via e-architect.co.uk
Interior scanned from Icon 137 Nov 2014 p 071
Map – Kallang Basin, Singapore via newlaunchonline.com

[click to enlarge]

DCC releases earthquake-prone buildings register

█ Electronic copy of the register (via LGOIMA) can be viewed at Comments.

Owners of all non-residential, pre-1976 buildings had until the end of next year to have their buildings assessed and report results to the council.

### ODT Online Wed, 17 Sep 2014
Tip of quake iceberg released
By Chris Morris
A register of Dunedin’s earthquake-prone buildings has been made public for the first time, but it is likely to represent only the tip of the iceberg, the Dunedin City Council says. Council staff, responding to an Otago Daily Times request, have released details of four earthquake-prone buildings in Dunedin, as well as another 44 considered likely or possibly so.
Read more

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DCC webpage: Earthquake strengthening
‘Earthquake strengthening’ improves a building’s ability to withstand the effects of earthquakes and, most importantly, improves the safety for those in and around the buildings.
Due to the age of Dunedin’s building stock and the large number of unreinforced masonry buildings in the city, many of the city’s heritage buildings are currently ‘earthquake–prone’. In 2012, owners of buildings in Dunedin will receive letters to advise them of the need to have their buildings inspected by a qualified structural engineer to assess their potential performance in an earthquake. These assessments will be recorded in a Council register. Building owners will be given a set timeframe in which to upgrade their buildings. Notwithstanding this timeframe, building owners undertaking other significant improvement work or a ‘change of use’ of a building will be required to complete earthquake strengthening as part of that work….
Read more + Links

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█ DCC reply to an official information request put by Marty Sharpe, Hawke’s Bay Reporter for the Dominion Post (Fairfax) on 23 October 2012: http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/292578/OIA-23-November-2012-Earthquake-Prone-Buildings.pdf

New Zealand faults [wikimedia.org]

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

DCC: Final vote tally + St Clair boat ramp

### ODT Online Fri, 18 Oct 2013
Final tally increases mayor’s vote margin
By Chris Morris
Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull extended his victory margin slightly when the Dunedin City Council’s final election results were released yesterday.
The figures, which added about 340 special votes not previously included, saw Mr Cull’s tally in the mayoral race rise by 158 votes, from 18,446 to 18,604. That meant his winning margin was extended by 113 votes, from 12,017 to 12,130, over nearest rivals Hilary Calvert (now with 6474 votes) and Cr Lee Vandervis (5872).
The final results saw small increases in the votes cast for all nine mayoral candidates, as well as the city’s 14 elected councillors.
Read more

Related Posts and Comments:
13.10.13 Pressuring Cull and his GD Party . . .
3.10.13 Exercise your right to VOTE
29.9.13 Alert: Dunedin voters —Mayors gain more powers

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Council roading maintenance engineer Peter Standring said the first rock placement was included in the already documented $500,000 cost of immediately fixing [the] problem. The rocks placed this week cost about $60,000. Consultants hired by the council to look into the problem plan to report to the council next week, and may be required to do more work.

### ODT Online Fri, 18 Oct 2013
Start on Esplanade boat ramp close
By Debbie Porteous
The Dunedin City Council will begin building a temporary rescue boat launching ramp at the north end of the St Clair Beach sea wall next week, after this week dumping another 1000 tonnes of rock along the wall. The ramp is to run from the north end of the Esplanade down to the beach, and will be used by the St Clair Surf Lifesaving Club to get its inflatable rescue boats to the water. The club lost its original concrete ramp after the sea wall near the ramp was undermined and the fill behind the wall sucked out to sea earlier this year.
A consent application was lodged, but the ramp would be built at the same time as the application progressed, as it needed to be in place for the start of beach patrols at the end of this month.
Read more

Related Posts and Comments:
26.5.13 [bad news] St Clair seawall #FAIL
25.6.13 DCC Annual Plan 2013/14

St Clair sea wall, Campbell Live (TV3) 17.6.13 [screenshots]

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Image (top) – Emperors new clothes [catherinewhite.files.wordpress.com] re-imaged by whatifdunedin

Sinkhole

Friday, 31 May 2013 4:34 p.m.

St Clair esplanade, Dunedin [image supplied – click to view enlarged]

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Related Posts and Comments:
26.5.13 [bad news] St Clair seawall #FAIL
28.11.11 St Clair seawall and beach access
31.3.11 St Clair esplanade, Dunedin

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Carisbrook and Leith flood protection

Received from Rob Hamlin.
Monday, 27 May 2013 1:03 p.m.

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Carisbrook on Sunday (26.5.13)

A picture of doomed dereliction – Innit? I tried to take photos of this last week, but the weather wasn’t good enough. I seem to recall that the comb lines in the manicured grass were going in a different direction then, indicating that further ratepayer-funded pampering has occurred this last week. What earthly reason can there be for the DCC to be spending money doing this on a structure that they claim they have a) sold and b) issued a demo permit for? Some seats are missing (but could be inside). The lights are gone, but Delta bought the last set anyway so why not ‘play it again Sam’?

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Otago Regional Council – Leith Flood Protection Scheme

001 ‘Sad Sacking’
The results of the equally seawall-like doomed attempts by the ORC and their representatives to establish a million dollar[?] lawn in the middle of winter in the bottom of a drainage channel occupied by a major flood prone waterway (the Leith). An act of simply heroic lunacy. This is the aftermath of the minor flood last week. The proto-lawn is covered in sacking further up the river, except for the bit next to the water – that’s now wrapped around the post in the foreground. Luckily it did not end up in the harbour – although many tons of silt presumably did. No doubt the ORC will be able to issue itself with a retrospective resource consent for this uncontrolled discharge into the environment.

002, 004 ‘Washed away’
For weeks now and presumably at great expense to the ORC, the contractors (Lund if the site signs are to be believed) have been laying down what looks like micropore mat, hexagon reinforcement, and what looks like a very expensive chicken wire plastic mesh combo – stitched together. They then planted grass on it. This can be seen growing feebly on the slope in 002. Alas, the minor flood that dislodged the sacking also gently sluiced out the soil and grass from the expensively-laid reinforcements on the level parts of the lawn laid (lunacy) right up to the edge of the river.

000 gives a higher angle shot showing the artistry of this now exposed and empty (of soil) soil stabilisation system, along with the feeble grass above it. I am not sure how they will reposition the soil into this stuff short of ripping it up and starting again. Presumably if all this expensive stuff was intended to stop soil coming out, it will be equally good at resisting attempts to put it back in again by mechanical means. Oh dear!

003 ‘Mighty defences’
Here we have what is actually supposed to keep the Leith in the straight and narrow from now on. This is the concrete shuttering for an incomplete part of the bank (this shuttering is now filled with shyte from the flood). The wall when poured (one hopes after clearing out said shyte) will be a worthy successor to the St Clair seawall – it is about 12 inches tall and 8 inches thick. It is plastered onto the top of (rather than onto the front of as with the seawall) the remains of its more substantial predecessor. The lawn (in the areas where it used to be there) starts directly behind it…

005 ‘Classy concrete placing’
The mighty foot-high defences take an interesting course in the photograph taken looking up the left-hand bank from the Forth Street Bridge. I do not know if this feature-bulge in the mighty wall is the outcome of a molar-like architectural design feature to increase the organic appearance of the site or if it’s simply a concrete shuttering quality control issue. It’s your rates money – you decide.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

*Photos: Rob Hamlin (May 2013)

[bad news] St Clair seawall #FAIL

Comment received from Stu.
2013/05/26 at 7:29 pm

St Clair sea wall compromised? Webcam image refreshes every 1 minute.

http://media.wickednetworks.co.nz/current-stclair.jpg

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Tweet to @whatifdunedin from @lowercasewriter.

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Related Post and Comments:
28.11.11 St Clair seawall and beach access

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Where House ? Adaptive reuse in the warehouse precinct | Open Lecture Tuesday 14 May

Where House ?
Adaptive reuse of buildings in Dunedin’s warehouse precinct

A presentation by Michael Findlay –professional practice fellow in Applied Sciences, University of Otago

When: Tuesday 14 May 2013 at 7:00 pm
Where: Burns Hall, First Church, Moray Place, Dunedin

All welcome

Hosted by Southern Heritage Trust –enquiries 03 471 8265

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The Otago Branch of New Zealand Historic Places Trust recently merged with Southern Heritage Trust.

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Images and Post by Elizabeth Kerr

Imported steel —New Zealand, “sleepy corner of the world”

The question that is increasingly being asked here is whether New Zealand engineers can be absolutely certain they have been supplied the quality of steel they ordered and whether we have systems in place to ensure standards are adhered to. The industry appears to believe the answers to both of those questions is “no”.

### stuff.co.nz Last updated 05:00 05/05/2013
Engineers flag concern over imported steel
By Rob Stock – Sunday Star-Times
The Institute of Professional Engineers (IPENZ) has secretly alerted the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment of concerns about the quality of imported structural steel used in New Zealand buildings. The Institute admitted concerns about the quality of “materials and equipment including steel used in various industries – construction, engineering, and machinery” were relayed to MBIE just weeks ago, after being raised at the Institute’s annual forum in March. The Institute cautioned that the information received was “anecdotal” and “raised in a private members’ area”, adding “at this stage IPENZ is unaware of the scale of the issue, or whether they were one-off instances”.

Steel importers could easily find Chinese manufacturers willing to falsify certificates to pass off cheaper steel as high quality.

Less private, though, were two papers given at the Steel Innovations Conference in Christchurch in February, just before that March meeting, papers which for the first time publicly alluded to the issue. One paper delivered by three staffers of Australian steel company OneSteel called for the construction industry to only accept steel from manufacturers accredited by independent third parties. “In Australia, there have been some significant structural failures which have been due, either wholly or in part, to the lack of conformance of the product to the standard and the identification of its source. Unfortunately legal restrictions on the reporting of these failures means they cannot be readily identified or discussed in this paper,” the paper said. In other words, the steel was not what was ordered. Some might call it counterfeit. Evidence from the UK, the paper said, “undeniably confirms that the lack of product conformity and traceability is contributing to structural failures”.

“Engineers from quite different parts of the engineering family have realised that we all have this issue to some extent.” –John Hare, Structural Engineers Society

The second paper on the damage done by the Canterbury earthquakes to the 22-storey Pacific Tower in Christchurch, which has now been fully repaired, brings things closer to home. As one engineer familiar with the paper put it, there were instances of failure in some imported structural steel in the tower which should not have happened. “Some of the parts were damaged more than what was expected,” he said. The steel in question was imported from Singapore, and was found not to perform as well at lower temparature as New Zealand or Australian-made steel. The authors of the paper called for “rigorous traceability between mill certificates and the material used in the fabrication” for structural steel used in certain circumstances. “Steels of origins other than NZ/AU may not have the required toughness… to comply with the current New Zealand steel structures standards,” it said.
Read more

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Prof Claudio Modena | Open Lecture Wednesday 1 May

New Zealand Historic Places Trust and New Zealand Society of Earthquake Engineering public talk

Professor Claudio Modena — “Retrofit of stone masonry buildings”
Italian research and practice

The New Zealand Historic Places Trust (NZHPT) and the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering (NZSEE) present a public talk by Italian earthquake engineering academic and consultant, Professor Claudio Modena.

When: Wednesday 1 May 2013 at 5:30 pm

Where: University of Otago, Quad 2 Lecture Theatre
1st floor Geology Building, Dunedin

All welcome

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Claudio Modena is a Professor of Structural Engineering at the University of Padova, Italy (1994–). He has presented the course of “Structural Problems of Monumental Historical Heritage” in Architectural and Building Engineering and is Director of the Masters course in ‘Structural Restoration of Historic Monuments and Buildings’.

Author of over 200 papers in international journals and attendances at conferences, Claudio Modena is interested in analysis and design of construction, with particular attention on:
– masonry of historical and monumental structures
– strengthening/retrofitting in seismic areas
– retrofitting of metal and masonry arch bridges, and
– safety evaluations.

The professor has maintained a balance between academic and practical experience, combining with mutual benefit both research work and technical consulting. Most of his consulting activity is in the field of restoration and conservation of historic masonry structures.

Claudio Modena is a member of several technical and scientific committees: Cultural Heritage Ministry, Protection of Cultural Heritage from Seismic Hazard Committee. He is currently a member of the High Risks Committee – Seismic Risk Sector of the national Civil Protection Agency and of the special committee established by the Ministry of Infrastructures and Public Works for re-drafting the national codes system related to structural safety of both new and existing structures.

Visit this website for more information about the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering Inc www.nzsee.org.nz

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Enhancing building performance #eqnz

Knee-jerk reactions to government proposals are hardly necessary at Dunedin, the DCC’s earthquake-prone buildings policy has already been launched.

DCC Earthquake Strengthening + Policy

ODT 8.12.12:
Dunedin City Council [policy planner – heritage] Glen Hazelton said the Government’s proposals were “pretty much in line” with the council’s existing policy. That policy required owners whose buildings were found to be less than 34% of code requirements to upgrade. Owners had between 15 and 34 years to do so, depending on the state of their building, meaning some would face shorter timeframes under the Government’s proposals than they had expected, but not extra costs. The most earthquake damage-prone buildings had faced the shortest timeframes anyway under the council’s policy. The council had warned owners of the possibility timeframes would be reduced from 34 years.
The council’s own buildings – including the likes of the Town Hall, Municipal Chambers and Railway Station – were already having their earthquake strength tested, council city property manager Robert Clark said. That work began early this year and up to 30 written reports on individual buildings were expected by mid-next year. Some, such as the Municipal Chambers, had already been strengthened, while others, like the Railway Station, were considered to be of sturdy construction, but were being checked, he said. Results were yet to be made public, but buildings appeared to be “measuring up at the moment”, reaching 66% of the building code or even better, he said. The council already faced extra costs, having initiated its own checks, but it was “appropriate” to do so and ensure the health and safety of staff and the public. He expected the checks would meet the requirements of the Government proposals, although detailed information was yet to be received. Mr Clark doubted buildings would need to be abandoned or demolished.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/238351/quake-plans-could-see-buildings-adandoned

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### NZ Herald Online 5:30 AM Saturday Dec 8, 2012
Earthquake changes could cost $1.7bn
By Isaac Davison
Uncompromising proposals to eliminate or strengthen earthquake-prone buildings could change the face of character areas such as Mt Eden’s Dominion Rd, and cause complex disputes in high-rise apartments owned by multiple parties. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has proposed seismic assessment of all commercial and high-rise, multi-unit buildings in New Zealand – believed to be 193,000 properties.
Those that were not upgraded to withstand a moderate-sized earthquake within 10 years of assessment would be demolished.
The Government proposals were in response to a Canterbury Earthquake Royal Commission report on quake-prone buildings, released yesterday. The ministry broadly agreed with the Royal Commission’s recommendations, but it proposed more lenient timeframes for strengthening and did not agree that the minimum threshold for remedial work should be raised. Housing and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson said to do so would impose “catastrophic” costs on society.
The Government proposals have been released in a consultation paper. If they are adopted, the cost of the changes would be borne by councils and property owners.
Read more + Q&A

*****

Only 39 people died due to unreinforced masonry buildings at Christchurch, that’s remarkably few given the age and size of the city, the population size and concentration, and the extent of devastation caused by the quakes.

### NZ Herald Online 10:58 AM Friday Dec 7, 2012
Most NZ buildings to be quake assessed
By Isaac Davison
All non-residential buildings and high-rise, multi-unit apartments in New Zealand will be assessed for earthquake risk and the results made public under Government proposals released this morning.
Any building found to be at risk of collapse will have to be strengthened or demolished within 15 years under the proposed changes, which form the Government’s response to a Royal Commission investigation into earthquake-prone buildings after the Canterbury quakes.
The Government planned to adopt many of the commission’s recommendations, but has chosen longer timeframes and lower minimum standards of building strengthening than the report proposed.
The commission found there was poor information on earthquake-prone buildings in New Zealand, lack of central guidance on defining and repairing these structures, and variable council approaches to fixing the problem. Only 23 of 66 local authorities were able to tell the commission how many earthquake-prone buildings were in their area.
Read more

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Related Posts and Comments:
19.7.12 Tonight – NZHPT Open Lecture WIN CLARK
2.7.12 Demolition by neglect. Townscape precincts.
26.1.12 Earthquake strengthening: voluntary targeted rates scheme
28.12.11 NZHPT National Heritage Preservation Incentive Fund
15.12.11 Dunedin: Nominations for heritage re-use awards close next week
5.11.11 Barlow Justice Valuers / New Zealand Historic Places Trust—Heritage Interiors Award 2011-2012
10.10.11 Facebook: Upright! Supporting Dunedin’s Built Heritage
9.10.11 Facebook: Upright! Supporting Dunedin’s Built Heritage
9.10.11 Diesoline – supreme winner of the inaugural Dunedin Heritage Re-use Awards
8.10.11 Workshop for heritage building owners – 23 November
3.10.11 Historic heritage SAVE
14.9.11 DCC Media Release: Dunedin’s Heritage Buildings
13.9.11 DCC assistance possible for earthquake strengthening
1.9.11 DCC Finance, Strategy and Development Committee
29.7.11 Disappearing heritage #Dunedin
4.5.11 Dunedin’s goldrush-era heritage won’t fall over, unless you make it
26.4.11 Dunedin Heritage Buildings Economic Re-use Steering Group
28.3.11 Dunedin earthquake proneness 2
10.3.11 Layers of Gold – Dunedin Heritage Festival 18-21 March 2011
21.2.11 Dunedin Heritage: Central government should be contributing
21.2.11 The proactive heritage development lobby EXISTS in Dunedin
19.2.11 Dunedin, are you ‘of a mind’ to protect Historic Heritage?
20.1.11 Dunedin Heritage Fund
16.1.11 DScene: Honour heritage
26.12.10 Historic heritage notes

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

Tonight – NZHPT Open Lecture WIN CLARK

See earlier post with details and downloadable flyer.

CAN EARTHQUAKE PRONE BUILDINGS BE STRENGTHENED?

YES THEY CAN!

.

The future of ‘old buildings’ in Dunedin is a topical issue.
Come and hear Win Clark, consultant structural engineer and Executive Director for the NZ Society for Earthquake Engineering talk about how stone and masonry buildings can be strengthened.

Find out:
• Why do masonry buildings fail?
• What are the biggest issues for strengthening ‘old buildings’?
• What modern techniques are available to strengthen brick and stone masonry buildings?
• What are the solutions to meet structural and economic criteria?

Win Clark is the consultant structural engineer for NZ Historic Places Trust.

THURSDAY 19 JULY 2012 5:30 to 7pm
OTAGO MUSEUM – BARCLAY THEATRE
419 Great King Street, Dunedin

Light refreshments to follow the conclusion of the talk.

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr

NZHPT Open Lecture: WIN CLARK

All welcome. Free entry.

NZHPT Win Clark flyer (PDF, 606 KB)

Win Clark is consulting structural engineer for NZ Historic Places Trust.

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Enquiries to Owen Graham, Area Manager – Otago/Southland
New Zealand Historic Places Trust/Pouhere Taonga

Floor 4, 109 Princes Street, PO Box 5467, Dunedin 9058, New Zealand
Phone 03 4779871 | DDI 03 4702362 | Cell 027 4316701 | Fax 03 4773893
Shop online at http://www.historic.org.nz/

Help keep New Zealand’s heritage places alive

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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr