Christchurch's lingering eyesore buildings are a 'parade of the uglies'

While admiring the reverence of Cranmer's Square Field of Remembrance on Sunday, I got chatting to a typically effervescent Irish tourist.

She first admired the beautiful installation while visiting Christchurch four years ago and the 30-something Dubliner remarked how impressive "some parts of the central city are looking."

Emma singled out the retail precinct, "particularly The Crossing" for special praise. "But why have so many eyesores been allowed to stay put?" she protested.

Why indeed. The city council's "Dirty List" of knuckle-draggers has supposedly been reduced from 30 to eight central city sites. The recently de-listed laggards have satisfied the council that they have tangible regeneration plans afoot. But there are no firm or enforceable timeframes, with which to hold their feet to their fire.

Have you stood on the corner of Manchester and Hereford Street lately? I would contend it's the central city core's most despicable and dispiriting streetscape. A little Detroit, circa 2009.

Sprawling towards Colombo St, 159 to 167 Hereford comprises a cluster of smashed up, vandalised, bomb-sites standing cheek-by-jowl, like a subversive take on a beauty parade. The parade of the uglies.

Upper-level wall linings flap in the breeze, gigantic tags carpet every roofline, crumbling buildings lean heavily on wooden supports and the whole godforsaken stretch hijacks the footpath, behind hurricane fencing. It's been like that since 2011, despite various murmurings of pending progress from one of the main property owners, Denis Harwood.

 

Joseph Johnson/Stuff

The former Duncan's Buildings located at 129-133 High St is one of the Christchurch City Council's "dirty 9" buildings.

 

Adjoining his sites is the decrepit eight-storey graffiti-spewing behemoth of Malvern House, home to the defunct Christchurch International College. The owner is the notoriously tight-lipped Vincent Chew, who refuses to reveal his intentions. It's a mystery why this atrocity is not on the "Dirty 8."

The city council's Head of Urban Regeneration, Carolyn Ingles, tells me that in regard to the horribles of Hereford, "If building owners want to be added to the programme, we are happy to discuss with them how we can help them to redevelop. We have contacted some of the owners and are in the process of talking with the remainder."

Really, seven years on? As to the spaghetti of graffiti defacing these buildings, Ingles says "the Council can remove graffiti where it is facing a public space, that we can safely reach."

That's not good enough. Building owners should be forced to remove it. If push came to shove, would the council consider compulsorily acquiring some of these interminable eyesores? No. Ingles says "the council will work alongside building owners to understand what issues they are currently facing, and to support them".

But how much longer can this pussycat process play out? In the eighth year of post-quake regeneration, it is grossly unfair to every single developer and owner who has made a positive and material difference to the central city.

Why should prolonged degeneration be tolerated, monstering the sparkling regeneration that involuntarily rubs shoulders with it? The degenerate, decrepit commercial carcasses are an anti-social affront to every new endeavour and enterprise.

Central City Business Association Chair, Brendan Chase, believes enough is enough. "We are far enough on to be searching for some fair and reasonable rules that nuture the central city as a pleasant and hospitable environment. The council should ensure that newly built and repaired developments aren't affected by their neighbours."

 

Joseph Johnson/Stuff

The former PWC Building located at 119 Armagh St is one of the "dirty 9" buildings that are still laying as they did following the February 22 earthquake.

 

Chase is rightly concerned that many owners of derelict sites are still allowed to block pedestrian traffic from the footpath and erect towering safety barricades that intrude onto the street. He thinks a ground rental charge would encourage fresh impetus. He's also calling for some enforceable rules on basic landscaping standards, particularly to tackle vacant sites that double as billowing dust-bowls.

Suburbia is pock-marked with monstrous eyesores, too. The rat-infested carcass of the hulking All Seasons Hotel in Papanui Road – deemed a quake risk, is an outrageous blight on a major tourism thoroughfare.

Owned by one of the country's wealthiest families, Auckland's Pansey family, do they have no shame? Despite Rakesh Pansey telling Stuff that site works would start by mid-2017, the cesspit remains.

The council tells me that a pre-application meeting was held, but no resource or building consent applications have been lodged.

Enough of the softly softly. The council should aggressively step up in defence of the city's amenity value.

 

Joseph Johnson/Stuff

The All Seasons Hotel site located at 60-72 Papanui Rd.