Another earthquake anniversary approaching. And it’s not as if those who lost friends and family in the quake or who lost their home in the quake need an anniversary to remind them of their loss - but February 22nd is always a time when we all think about how things have changed here in Canterbury.
This Wednesday will be no different and, even after all this time, one of the starkest reminders of that change is still the residential red zones.
The one most people probably think of is the area that extends out to East Christchurch. It still gets called the red zone but, officially, it’s known as the Ōtākaro Avon-River Corridor.
It’s where the plan is for a 30-year programme of work to bring the area back to life with a variety of things from walkways, wetlands, tourism activities - plus some more mundane, but actually more critical stuff, like flood protection.
The plan was all done a few years ago but it’s going to be up to the city council to put the finding in over the next few decades to make it all happen.
Probably the second most well-known red zone is the one in Waimakariri. There’s a plan for this area too - with new parks and reserves, walking and cycling tracks, business areas etc.
It seems now too, that some form of residential housing is going to be on the cards with news that the Crown has gifted red-zoned land near Kaiapoi to a local trust, which is going to lease 47 sections to people so they can live there.
The Te Kohaka o Tuhaitara Trust expects the housing will be relocatable and anticipates some people could be living there as soon as June this year.
It is talking about the houses on the red zone land being light, modular or tiny home structures. Things that could be packed up and moved, at some stage.
It’s not clear, from what I’ve read, how or why the red-zone land was gifted to the trust. But, irrespective of that, it is an interesting twist when pretty much since the earthquakes we’ve been told that the red zone areas in Christchurch and Waimakariri won’t be used for residential purposes. Despite some people wanting to.
I know the tiny home people were keen a few years back to get set up in the Ōtākaro Avon-River Corridor. There was talk of a camping ground somewhere in there too, I think.
But there has always been a range of views from people who actually lived there before the earthquakes. Some would love to be back living there - and some have been of the view that if they can’t live there, then no one should.
It’s the same with the red zone near Kaiapoi. Which is where these sites are going to be leased-out for people to live.
A person I know grew up in the Kaiapoi red zone and she hates the idea of this trust leasing out sections when people who were living there before the quakes have consistently been told that residential would never be an option there.
She says there are plenty of people who offered to remediate their sections at their own cost and do whatever was needed to make it a place they could live in again. But it’s always been 'no, no, no'.
It’s been the same with the residential red zone in Christchurch. There were some, of course, who didn’t budge when the government and the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) started paying people out for the properties they lost.
I’m pretty sure there’s still one living there - at Kerrs Reach.
But it is interesting how things change with time, and it seems that some form of residential housing is going to happen, at least in the Kaiapoi red zone.
Personally, I think relocatable housing is the way of the future. Because, with climate change, why wouldn’t we want to make retreating away from coastline areas far more possible and less complex than it is at the moment?
But, in this case, I think it’s a bad idea. Because, while relocatable housing gets the big tick from me, why on earth would you let anyone set-up home (relocatable or otherwise) out near a beach and - in the case of Pines Beach - right by a river as well. That would be nutbar.
Because, as we’ve seen up north, if things can change so quickly during a weather event - so quickly - it won’t matter one bit whether your house is relocatable or not.
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