1. Pages Rd through Bexley, past quake ravaged, red zone streets Waitaki St & Bexley Rd...
2. New Brighton Rd, ragged red zone, past Burwood to The Palms...
3. New Brighton Rd, cross Avondale Rd Bridge, then ragged red zone Avonside Dr...
4. Ragged red zone, New Brighton Rd, Locksley Ave, Dallington Tce, River Rd, Swanns Rd, Stanmore Rd...
Since the quakes, after people evacuated & CERA red zoned 1 000s of riverside properties, ghost houses were derelict, tagged with broken, vandalized windows, gardens overgrown. Every time I drove the ragged edge of the residential red zone, it was more desolate with more CERA demolitions & weedy gaps between ghost houses, after evacuees took the CERA / Crown offer & / or dealt with insurers for rebuild payouts.
CERA's latest "Red Zone Statistics
Total number of red zoned properties in greater Christchurch: 7 860.
Red zoned property owners who've returned a sale & purchase agreement: 6 315.
Number who've settled with the Crown: 5 064.
(Of those, 1 286 selected option 1 where the Crown buys the land & improvements. 3 778 selected option 2 where the Crown purchases the land only)." Greater Christchurch Recovery Update, Issue 16, December 2012.
The above statistics confirmed NZ National govt's / CERA's residential red zone take, mostly riverside & some Port Hills properties. It added to NZ National govt's / CERA's take of scores of CBD red zoned properties for its CBD precincts & CBD Frame land. NZ National govt's take of Christchurch CBD was touted by CCDU / NZ National govt as "Land Acquisition."
What CERA didn't report was that the Crown would compensate only "half the most recent Rateable Value" for red zone vacant land, which was uninsurable. (CERA press release 13 September 2012). A NZ National govt rip off. That also applied to CBD Frame land confiscations, for landowners refusing to sell their CBD land to CERA / CCDU.
CERA's CCDU Blueprint wanted to rebuild Christchurch CBD on swampland & the Christchurch Fault. And use taxpayers' money for the CBD Frame take & burden ratepayers for decades with expensive loss-makers like a 35 000 seater, roofed stadium & convention centre on swampland & the Christchurch Fault.
The Press 15.12.12 quoted costs of the stadium & convention centre as $400m & $300m respectively. What for? Hotels & school halls or varsity / tech / training college lecture theatres / halls could be used as convention centres & Christchurch already had enough stadiums. CCDU / CERA was bonkers wanting to foist those expenses on ratepayers, when many people existed in quake trashed houses & drove on quake trashed roads.
The iniquity of NZ National govt's, CBD take was that NZ National govt used taxpayers' money to boot CBD landowners off their CBD land & replace with "anchor projects," like a convention centre & a stadium & Frame parks. (In future "CCDU FAQ - Land Acquisition" would disappear from the internet when CERA disbanded).
12.12.12. Quake survivor, Baker St house
Via option 4 above, I drove the ragged edge of the residential red zone to Stanmore Rd near where Leah worked. All the red zone roads were quake stuffed, potholed, shingled, lumpy & bumpy. Ghost houses & more demolition sites than when I'd last driven that way, several ghost houses steel mesh fence cordoned, demolition notices on fencing. A few joggers & drivers bumped along, but 100s of overgrown houses were lifeless by Avon River.
London St: Leah's Jean Seabrook Memorial School, Seabrook McKenzie Centre, was twice liquefactioned in 22.02.11 Killer Quake & June 13 Quake. Staff & parents twice dug the school out of liquefaction mud. The school was close to Avon River's ragged edge of the residential red zone, fringing the CBD's red zone.
12.12.12. Quake survivor, Seabrook McKenzie Centre, London St
12.12.12. Teacher, Jean Seabrook Memorial School, London St
London St / Pavitt St: Since the Feb 22 Killer Quake, a green, plastic, sewage tank stood on the pavement by the school on Pavitt St cnr. Recently SCIRT had spent weeks repairing sewage pipes in London St. School staff & nearby house / flat residents had to detour to their homes & work. Nearly 2 years post 22.02.11 Killer Quake, London St was still poorly repaired.
12.12.12. London St / Pavitt St view, Richmond Working Mens Club. The Club would be demolished, then rebuilt 2020, named Richmond Club
London St: About 50 paces from Leah's school, I looked at Richmond Working Mens Club ghost, trashed in the Feb 22 Killer Quake & June 13 Quake. Months later the club was part demolished. Over the last week, more demolition. Steel mesh fence cordon, threat sign:
DANGER
ASBESTOS
HAZARD
Never mind Leah's school playground was less than 50m from the club demolition site. Demolishers put school kids', staffs' & residents' lives at risk. They could've waited a couple of weeks to do their dirty work during school holidays.
12.12.12. Steel mesh fence cordon. Richmond Working Mens Club demolition, London St / Stanmore Rd. The club would be rebuilt 2020, named Richmond Club
Over the last year, Leah complained that whenever a heavy vehicle rumbled past her school, the school shook. That was over & above 1 000s of quake aftershocks. She'd had a guts-full!
12.12.12. Richmond Working Mens Club demolition, London St / Stanmore Rd. The club would be rebuilt 2020, named Richmond Club
Later Richmond Working Mens Club, est 1888, would be completely demolished. The club would be rebuilt 2020, named Richmond Club. Jake would chef there.
Stanmore Rd: Next to Richmond Working Mens Club was Richmond Methodist Church. The hall was gone, demolished. Busy Stanmore Rd near the ragged edge of the residential red zone, was a messy mix of quake survivor bldgs, demolition sites & tagging. An idiot spray-painted "duck" all over the show. Pre quakes, Leah & school kids had regularly used the church hall for school activities.
Wooden church door, threat sign:
DANGER
CONSTRUCTION SITE
Keep out!
12.12.12. Steel mesh fence cordon. Quake survivor, Richmond Methodist Church, Stanmore Rd. Richmond Methodist Church would be relocated by truck to Marshlands Rd, 30.03.16
Richmond Methodist Church, steel mesh fence cordon, banner:
STAND UP FOR OUR KIDS
SAVE OUR LOCAL SCHOOL
RICHMOND SCHOOL
The protest was in vain as MOE soon closed Richmond School together with several other Christchurch schools, like Phillipstown School. MOE used quakes as Shock Doctrine to vandalize Christchurch education. Quakes were Disaster Capitalism for NZ National govt to disrupt quake traumatized communities & asset sale schools on valuable land. (Example: 2022. Townhouses would be built on demolished New Brighton School land).
12.12.12. Richmond School, Rubble Renewal Project, Richmond Methodist Hall, demolition site, Stanmore Rd
Post quakes, school kids from nearby Richmond School, Pavitt St, made a community garden on the church demolition site, a Gap Filler initiative. By the community garden, a mural was on the concrete wall of Richmond Working Mens Club.
Sign in the garden:
"This year children of Richmond School have been learning about 'L.I.F.E.' How our Life Impacts the Future of our Earth...
Our senior class took the opportunity to plan, design and create a Rubble Renewal project on this Methodist Church site. What you see here is a combination of many weeks of work and the generosity of our supporters' time, hard work and resources...
We know that this will be a space that will be enjoyed and cared for by our community."
Post quakes, Richmond Methodist Church & Hall site would become part of Richmond Club rebuild.
12.12.12. Richmond School, Rubble Renewal Project, Richmond Methodist Hall demolition site, Stanmore Rd
Richmond School was slated for closure by NZ National govt. MOE minister Parata destroyed quake survivor communities by closures & mergers of schools all over Christchurch. Parata was a list MP (no electorate mandate) who did NZ National govt's dirty work.
*Trekked Baker St, London St, Stanmore Rd. 53 images.
Sat 15.12.12. 6.03pm, M3.5 quake, 9km depth, 10km SE of Christchurch (GeoNet). Shook our lounge sofa while I watched TV news. Leah didn't feel it as she was walking around.
Fri 21.12.12. MOE was in such disarray that the Education Secretary, Lesley Longstone, a Pom, was sacked after serving only a year of her 5 year contract. Parata was PM Key's puppet, causing strife in Christchurch schools, like wanting to increase class sizes & botching teacher payrolls for months.
A hallelujah chorus of expedient apologies by managers, after being named & shamed by the Royal Commission of Inquiry & Coroner's Inquest into 115 deaths at the CTV bldg collapse in the 22.02.11 Killer Quake: Reay, 1986 engineering design boss of CTV, apologised belatedly to the Royal Commission. McGill fire service boss apologised for slack management of fire & USAR / TF on 22.02.11 Killer Quake day.
Mayor Parker apologised for Council's incompetent green stickering of CTV post 04.09.10 Darfield Quake & 26.12.10 Boxing Day Quake. Parker also apologised for Council's consenting design & construction of CTV in 1986, despite design not being up to code. (The Star 12.12.12).
Those "apologies" came many months post CTV collapse, only after intense legal & public scrutiny of their organizations.
Wed 26.12.12. We had Boxing Day lunch at Luke's girlfriend's home, South New Brighton. A late afternoon quake shook the house & rattled windows. On Christmas Day breakfast time, a M3.5 quake had passed Burnside, without us feeling it.
The South New Brighton house had a sewage pump house in the garden & in the 22.02.11 Killer Quake the concrete manhole lifted 1m above the soil. The sewage pipes were fixed, but the land subsided, causing a room to pull away from the house. (Mar 2016, Luke's ex girlfriend would suffer PTSD, her nerves shot, having endured the ragged edge of Pegasus Bay Faults & Port Hills Fault).
Subsidence happened all over town, after SCIRT had dug up roads to replace / repair pipes. After SCIRT excavations & SCIRT re-laid patchy asphalt, roads were often worse than before, due to subsidence, ground movements in aftershocks & new potholes or bumps forming.
After more than 2 years of quakes we were left with quake anxiety, wondering when the next big quake would strike & bldg phobia, avoiding what was left of ghost high rises. Forsyth Barr in the CBD would survive the quakes, despite its stairs failing & people being lowered from windows during the 22.02.11 Killer Quake. You'd never catch me entering high rises Forsyth Barr / Crowne Plaza Hotel, nor Pacific Tower / Rendezvous Hotel, nor other Christchurch high rises again. Stairs gone in Forsyth Barr & wall surface cracks in Pacific Tower allowed oxidation of reinforcement steel. I doubted epoxy gluing of wall cracks in Pacific Tower would strengthen that high rise!
We were left with quake anniversaries, where we were & what we did when 5 big quakes struck: 04.09.10 Darfield Quake; 26.12.10 Boxing Day Quake; 22.02.11 Killer Quake; 13.06.11 Quake; 23.12.11 Xmas Quake Swarm.
As rumblings continued, when / where would the next big quake hit? Seismologists were quiet.
Coda:
30.03.16. The Press reported that Richmond Methodist Church would be truck relocated to Marshlands Rd. It wasn't the first nor last wooden bldg to be truck relocated.
Richmond School, Pavitt St, would stop funtioning as a school, but would remain an Education Hub used by teachers. 2021. Leah would give a Resource Teacher Literacy seminar to teachers there, organized by Seabrook McKenzie Centre, London St. 2023. After resigning from part-time, teacher training work at the Centre, Leah would be farewelled at the Education Hub. She'd done part-time, Seabrook Mckenzie Centre work for 2 decades.
Content & pics Copyright Mark JS Esslemont.
See Education secretary quits job (The Press / Stuff Co).
See Further red zone properties addressed 13 September 2012 (CERA press release).
See Forsyth Barr building may be repaired (The Press / Stuff Co).
See Pegasus Bay Faults (NIWA).
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