Rebuild the right way

New days: Widespread destruction in central Christchurch opens an opportunity to conceive and build a city that is even more beautiful, liveable and sustainable.

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OPINION: Earthquake building safety needs overhaul in New Zealand.

FOR MORE than 750 years, people have felt safe, comfortable and fulfilled in the place we've called, since 1848, Christchurch.

They will again, and for many centuries to come. They will because the place and its people have always created abundant life.

Right now, though, survival dominates their lives, while their agony and grief rocks ours. Yet soon they will begin to draw on their past and on their hopes to build a new Christchurch from the earthquake's ruins. Steeped in their history, they will recreate their city for their future, and ours.

To do so, they will need to feel safe, inspired and helped. As a nation, we're rallying magnificently around them now. But the long, hard, job of rebuilding will require us to start doing things a lot differently.

Crucially, we must invest boldly and fully for the long term, rather than hoping we can make do. We must overcome distrust, frustration and distractions so we give the people of Christchurch and New Zealand a city they deserve.

Above all, this applies to safety. The people are utterly exhausted after two major earthquakes and more than 4500 other seismic shocks in the past five months.

To recover, they must have complete confidence in their homes, schools, offices, meeting places and other buildings and infrastructure, certainty that those bedrocks of the city will withstand whatever nature throws at them.

If they don't, some will leave and fewer will come. Those who stay will be drained by anxiety, demotivated by insecurity. The city will wither away, a shadow of its former self as New Orleans has become after Hurricane Katrina.

We tell ourselves we're among the best in the world when it comes to earthquake resilience. Look how clever we were to build Te Papa on rubberised base isolators, look how prudent we were to stash money in the Earthquake Commission.

That, though, is delusional. Almost all councils except Wellington have adopted passive approaches to earthquake strengthening of older buildings. Only if owners make major modifications might upgrades be required, and then, in most cases, to only one-third of the standard for new buildings.

Wellington is barely better. It requires any building built before 1976 and accommodating a large number of people to be strengthened to one-third of current standards within 20 years. The deadline was shorter, but it was extended after building owners complained about the cost.

Hopefully, though, we'll learn from the huge loss of lives in Christchurch and the massive cost of rebuilding. The financial demands will deeply deplete the reserves accumulated painstakingly by the Earthquake Commission over the 65 years since it was established, and will also consume other capital that could have been used productively elsewhere in the economy.

We must think of earthquake proofing as an investment, not a cost. The same applies to inspiration. Widespread destruction in central Christchurch gives its people a remarkable opportunity to conceive and build a city that is even more beautiful, liveable and sustainable.

Yet, judging by New Zealand history – Napier excluded – we'll race to build a cheap, rather shoddy centre that's barely fit for the short-term. We'll tell ourselves we can't afford to do better. But we've got to invest for the future. Given the world's rapidly rising human population, burgeoning cities, stresses of climate change and ever-scarcer resources, energy and water, the whole nature, form and technology of cities is changing in revolutionary ways. If we fail to adapt our cities and towns, we will drastically weaken the quality of our lives, and our competitiveness in the global economy.

Thus the earthquakes are an extraordinary opportunity to achieve those goals in the centre of Christchurch, thereby greatly improving the whole urban area.

Christchurch will remain its very attractive self, in character and defining factors such as its historic street grid. But it will find new expressions of those, which will be uniquely right for it, and appropriate for the new global reality. In doing so, Christchurch will become truly sustainable. It will make resilient its presence on the Canterbury plain, it will greatly enhance its economy, and it will lift the spirit of its people. This is not the task of the city. It is the task of the nation.

Christchurch rising

Christchurch and its neighbours have been thinking a lot in recent years about how they can best grow their region in attractive and sustainable ways.

One vital strategy is "A City for People", which Christchurch City Council adopted last year. It articulates a plan out to 2022 for making the city centre more vibrant and people-friendly. The plan offers many insights into Christchurch's strengths and how the city can build on them. You can download the plan at http://bit.ly/gYaubA

It's also worth browsing the placemaking site to see what some other of our cities are up to. For Christchurch, though, the earthquakes change everything.

Rather than incremental improvement, its citizens have the opportunity to give new expression to the qualities of their city, just as Napier did after its earthquake 80 years ago. And their task is vastly more demanding than Napier's. The whole nature of urban form, lifestyle, economy, resource use and the technology that supports them is changing at breathtaking speed to meet the demands of people and the planet.

Vision 2050 is one highly readable analysis of those towering challenges over the next 40 years. Published last year by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, you can download at copy at www.wbcsd.org

oram@clear.net.nz

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