Woza Wanderer: Year 3 CERA. Fluffy Fendalton. Port Hills Slippery Slopes

Fendalton focus. Fri 08.11.13. In Christchurch more than 3 years post 4 September quake, footpaths were dire, road surfaces worse, with SCIRT excavations & patchings. But post-quake Christchurch was still beautiful, despite "rebuild" by CERA minister Brownlee & new mayor Dalziel.

Fluffy Fendalton ladies amused me on my morning treks from Hagley Park Nth, back to Burnside. Some walked their dogs, some jogged, some pushed prams. Ladies' hair matched their dogs' fur: teased hair, bottle-blond hair... A red-haired lady jogged with her red-haired spaniel. An old lady, full poop-bag in one hand, fluffy terrier leashed to the other. A lady cycled beside the railway track, 2 fluffy dogs in her bike basket. Ladies walked with aluminium ski poles. Ladies scootered their kids to school, then scootered home along lumpy footpaths. Jewelled ladies in parked cars chatted by houses needing repairs. Fendalton damages: near streams, hidden behind vegetation & high walls.

01.11.13. Quake trashed house awaiting demolition, Wairarapa Tce

Wairarapa Tce: I trekked past demolition sites, construction sites, repair sites. Over the last week, I'd watched a ghost entirely demolished: Monday, house quarter demolished; Tuesday, half demolished; Thursday, house gone, pile of rubble, orange digger on top; Friday, empty demolition site, digger smoothing soil on site. Footpath, covered by 2 steel slabs, allowing excavator machines to cross over.

01.11.13. Quake trashed house awaiting demolition, Wairarapa Tce

Garden Rd: Thursday 5 - Tuesday 10 December. HAZARD AREA. DEMOLITION SITE. Another house demolition: Thursday, workmen ripped out vegetation in the garden. By Monday, house demolished, heap of rubble, navy-blue sofa on top. Tuesday, sandy, demolition site & footpath, steel mesh fence cordoned. Took less than a week to completely demolish a house on a quarter-acre property. Over the last 3 years that happened 1000s of times.

CAUTION CONSTRUCTION SITE. AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY... SPECIFIC HAZARD...

Trekked past house foundation repairs & and house rebuild sites.

10.12.13. Steel mesh fence cordon. Post quake, house demolition site, Garden Rd

10.12.13. Post quake foundation repair, Garden Rd

10.12.13. Steel mesh fence cordon. Post quake, house rebuild, Garden Rd

Pre-quakes, I saw lively riverside roads along Heathcote River & Avon River. Pre-quakes Jake lived on Avonside Dr, Avon Loop. Post- quakes Jake & Luke now flatted together in a 2 storey house on Ashrove Tce by Heathcote River.

Pre & post-quakes, I'd often trekked Avon River streets: Avonside Dr, River Rd, Dallington Tce, Locksley Ave, New Brighton Rd, Bexley Rd, Waitaki St. The last 2, the first streets Leah & I saw flooded in 4 September quake. Trashed by later quakes.

Pre-quakes roads by Avon River were housed & lively. Post-quakes, red zoned, dusty demolition sites. Those roads haunted me, luring me back over the last 3 years. Not my only road haunts.

Big news this week: discrepancy between CERA's Port Hills land zonings & a Council geotech report (Institute of Geological & Nuclear Science) which Council sat on since August, showing discrepancies between CERA's zonings & the Council report on dangers of slippery-slopes in the Port Hills. Slippery-slope dangers in Council's report were Classed 1 to 3: Class 1, most dangerous slope, Class 3, least dangerous slope.

Council's geotech report used the term "mass movement," meaning rockfalls, cliff-collapses, slippery-slopes, land-slips. In reality Port Hills were riddled with cracks, slopes ready to subside in a quake. Aerial photos showed Council developed housing atop Port Hills, on Port Hills slopes, below Port Hills slopes.

CERA boss Sutton wittered for months, delaying CERA zonings in the Port Hills, as CERA awaited a Port Hills rolling-rocks study by Milan University. Waste of time & money, while Council did a similar geotech study. Disconnect between former mayor Parker's Council & CERA. While Parker's minions red-stickered Port Hills houses, CERA's lackeys green-zoned the same housing. Why didn't minister Brownlee sort out communications between Council & CERA? Duplication between CERA & Council: CERA's Insurer Advisory Service vs Council's Advocacy Service. CERA expected Council to use ratepayers' money to part-pay for CERA's Advisory Service, an EQC / insurer protection racket. CERA recovery?

Roads I'd trekked, mentioned in the Council report: Clifton Tce, Clifton; Cliff St, Moncks Bay; Defender Ln, Glendevere Tce, Redcliffs; Bridle Path Rd, Heathcote Valley; Alderstone Ave, Lucas Ln, Aynsley Tce, Hillsborough; Bowenvale Ave, Bowenvale Valley. There were many more slippery-slope roads investigated by the Council report, too many for me to trek.

Slippery-slopes I blogged post-quakes: Scarborough, Sumner, Clifton, Redcliffs: ghosts atop cliffs, below cliffs or bluffs, on slippery-slopes. Moncks Bay: ghosts atop cliffs, below cliffs, on loess slopes, on rocky slopes. Mt Pleasant, Heathcote Valley, Bowenvale Valley: houses on slippery-slopes. Hillsborough: ghosts on loess slopes, below loess cliffs, below rocky bluffs. Lyttelton: houses on slippery, rocky slopes. Never mind streams flowing in several of the above areas, aggravating unstable ground.

Port Hills roads haunted me too. I'd returned to see broken roads from pre-quakes, lively residential areas to post-quakes demolition sites, or house repairs, or house rebuilds.

Meanwhile:

1. Recent High Court ruling, CERA's residential red zoning was unlawful: CERA was appealing the ruling, causing delays in final residential zoning decisions. Some Port Hills property owners waited over 2 years for a CERA zoning. Homeowners in limbo. Minister Brownlee apologised.

2. This week's Council geotech report, some of which didn't match CERA's green & red zonings. Some of CERA's green-zoned Port Hills residential properties were Class 1 in Council's report: lethal. A shambles!

3. Insurers used CERA vs Council conflicts regarding residential zonings / classes as excuses to delay settlements, or house repairs, or house rebuilds. Aggravating CERA versus Council conflicts, the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment only recently sorted out new, post- quake, strengthened foundation specifications. Once again, owners of broken homes were trapped between NZ National govt departments & Council. Why did NZ National govt take so long producing foundation specifications? Post-quake houses were already rebuilt with crap foundations!

4. Stonewalling, time wasting, secretiveness, lack of transparency from Council, CERA, EQC.

Property owners' pushback: public protests, court actions, email leaks released by bloggers, media reports, ombudsman complaints, state services commissioner reports, Official Information Act (OIA) requests to EQC, before getting any sense from authorities responsible for quake RECOVERY.

Monday 18.11.13, 11.36pm, M4.6 quake, 8km depth, 10km SW of Christchurch (GeoNet) in the "Gap" between Halswell & Prebbleton. Leah & I didn't feel it, as we were in our car, driving on Barrington St near Port Hills.

Thurs 21.11.13 The Press front page headline: HOUSING CHANGES TO RAISE DENSITY

CERA vs Council farce continued: More than a year post 22 February quake, in June last year, when displaced people were sleeping in garages, cars, caravans, on the beach, CERA minister Brownlee said there was no housing crisis & the market would sort things out. 22 February quake, flooded Jake out of his Waltham Rd flat. He'd over-wintered with girlfriend in a liquefactioned garage off Cranford St!

NZ National govt red-zoned 7 000+ houses, expecting them to be abandoned by owners compelled to find housing elsewhere. Not a squeak from former town clerk Marryatt's & former mayor Parker's Council about that massive taking by NZ National govt! So far, CERA demolished 3 500 red zone houses, 4 500+ still to go. (29.11.13 The Press / Stuff Co).

Without actually replacing the 7 000+ red zoned houses lost by quakes & NZ National govt decree, minister Brownlee suggested changing big, old houses into flats; degrade granny flats & Councils' pensioners' cottages into flats for young people; degrade quarter-acre properties into high-density townhouses. New mayor Dalziel actually agreed to those potential, high-density slums!

March 2015. Mayor Dalziel would sing Mandarin love songs, wooing Chinese investors in China. Shed joined other Chinese wooers, PM Key, former PM Shipley. Dec 2019. Mayor Dalziel would be scorned for not naming her election campaign donors. Later she revealed names of several Chinese donors.

Thus Dalziel & minister Brownlee wanted to stuff 30 to 65 dwellings per hectare, without improvements in infrastructure, public transport, nor roads. (The Press 29.11.13). Thus Dalziel's Council would have a bigger rates base. Where would Dalziel & minister Brownlee put garaging & parking per hectare? Considering MoE's 2012 botch-up, closing & merging Christchurch schools, did Brownlee & Dalziel consult Parata's MoE about new schools for their incipient slums? 2023. There would be new housing development in Halswell. But no new high school would be built in Halswell!

Wed 27.11.13. In the mornings, after Leah dropped me off at Hagley Park Nth, I exercised on the outdoor gym machines by the golf club. I then trekked back to Burnside. Over the last week I'd watched "Christmas In The Park" Xmas tree, stage & equipment set up for the annual festival.

27.11.13. Christmas In The Park, Xmas tree & stage, Hagley Park N

On my daily treks from Hagley Park North through Fendalton to Burnside I saw FOR SALE signs on residential properties: land for sale, houses for sale, with or without EQC repairs, as is where is... There were also ghosts awaiting EQC & insurers for repairs, thus ensuring the rental market was still in crisis, as former inhabitants of abandoned housing had to live somewhere. All those Fendalton FOR SALE signs meant home owners were cashing-in.

Clifford Ave: Opp Mona Vale, During recent rainy days, I watched diggers digging a new foundation-hole on a Fendalton house demolition site, between the railway & Wairarapa Stream. Soil-horizon was about half metre silt above yellow clay, same soil-horizon as our Burnside rental. The house would be built on quakemire, rumbled by the railway, doomed by the next big quake, despite deeper foundations: compacted shingle, thicker concrete foundation-slab!