Unmatched building project not started
I have been inspired by two articles in today’s ODT (16.7.24).
Lois Galer muses Dunedin is becoming oblivious to the rest of the world, but has unmatched heritage buildings. At the bottom of p7 a local architectural firm has won New Zealand and international awards for a major project in China, the Marisfrolg Campus, over 120,000sq m, taking 14 years from design to opening.
A few years ago, this same firm, Architecture Van Brandenberg, joined Sir Ian Taylor, another of Dunedin’s internationally recognised sons and presented the public and the DCC with a plan to develop our rundown harbour side area with a combination of brilliant public buildings.
What has happened? Too expensive, and it was allowed to die?
Cost is inevitably the problem, but there are ways to handle that. Public-private partnership, or find out how Wellington financed their harbour development some decades ago.
In the 1860s Dunedin became the first city in New Zealand, but since then too many businesses and their employees have headed north.
We have built several projects, labelled initially as "too expensive" — Moana Pool, the stadium — and Dunedin and Otago are now the better for them. So come on DCC, get behind the harbourside project and see it proceed, at least in manageable stages.
Dave Tucker
Maryhill
Public opinion
Otago people, and DCC councillors, should read and thoroughly digest Sue Kedgley’s most illuminating article (Opinion ODT 9.7.24), re the proposed sale of the Aurora line network.
Ms Kedgley outlined how the line company, formerly owned by the Wellington City Council, was sold in the 1990s and then on-sold three further times with very large profits. It is now owned by a Hong Kong company.
Special conditions of sale, allegedly locking in certain protections, were not adhered to. Local control was lost forever. Line charges line went up by about 600%. Capital input into ongoing maintenance was minimal.
The DCC s proposal to sell Aurora seems to centre around its tight financial situation. The council must learn to focus on future actual needs as opposed to "nice to do" projects.
The $40 million council replacement of underground piping is a good case in point. That was necessary. The remaining $60m on the more fanciful anti-car one-way George St project was not, and added to its financial woes.
My advice to voters is to record the names of councillors supporting the Aurora sale and remove them at the 2025 local body elections. Those councillors are not listening to the majority of ratepayers, who are already struggling under the burden of the recent 16 % rate rise.
Laurie Dalziel
Mosgiel
Money well spent
When the CEO of DCHL claims a bill of $150,000 is money well spent and cheap, for "experts" to evaluate the sale of Aurora it illustrates he has no connection to the average person in Dunedin. I doubt it would take those experts any more than a day or two to do a desktop appraisal of their brief to support the sale of Aurora, of course obliquely. So that’s a good earn.
Bruce Cloughley
Balaclava
Privatisation costs
There are two networks covering the same area of Wellington, each distributing an essential service. One is water distribution and remains in public ownership. The other is electricity distribution and this was privatised in 1990. Between 1990 and 2010, the cost of distributing water rose by 17.5%, i.e. less than inflation. During the same period the cost of distributing (privatised) electricity rose by 295%.
The DCC should not privatise Aurora.
Ian Breeze
Broad Bay
And yet the problem is in someone’s yard
When is a strategy not a strategy? When it’s a three-page pamphlet of nice-to-haves and promises that has no plan of action or any design to achieve a long-term or overall aim.
Saturday’s editorial (ODT 13.7.24) is to be congratulated: it brilliantly highlighted the fact that the document released by Climate Change Minister Simon Watts last Wednesday, was anything but ambitious and comprehensive.
It seems that the coalition does not know what the right hand is doing from the left hand. Recent colossal cuts to the Climate Change Commission does not bode well for implementation of changes in this area. Maybe if the recent floods had been in some of the decision-makers’ backyards, we really would have a proper strategy and climate change might be given the importance it deserves. What we need is "front yard" mentality. Theirs.
Robyn Bridges
Port Chalmers
Rail concerns
I am concerned about the effect of scrapping the rail roll-on, roll-off freight ferries across Cook Strait. Christchurch needs a method of moving containers cheaply from the North Island to here. Railways do that. Railways get containers off the road. Railways are far cheaper to maintain and run. Maintenance costs are minor compared to road repairs. Trucks wreck our roads and cause potholes and damage to cars.
The idea that a truck should move a container from Auckland to Christchurch is daft. It should be moved by rail with no delay at Cook Strait.
Ray Spring
St Martins
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
