The focus of this paper is to identify potential benefits of community involvement in master planning in the post-earthquake recovery context in Christchurch; and to identify considerations for planners involved in the design of master planning processes that involve the community. Findings are based on the results of an information sharing event on these topics convened by The Habitat Project in December 2011, and a review of the relevant literature.
There is strong consensus in the civil defence and emergency management literature that public participation is essential for a 'good' recovery. However, there is a paucity of research detailing how this community-led planning should be carried out in the real world. There are few processes or timelines for communities to follow when wanting to plan for themselves, nor is there a great deal of advice for communities who want to plan for their own recovery. In short, despite this consensus that community involvement is desireable, there is very little information available as to the nature of this involvement or how communities might facilitate this. It is simply assumed that communities are willing and able to participate in the recovery process and that recovery authorities will welcome, encourage, and enable this participation. This is not always the case, and the result is that community groups can be left feeling lost and ineffective when trying to plan for their own recovery.
In attempting to address this gap, my study contributes to a better understanding of community involvement in recovery planning, based on research with on particular a community group (SPRIG), who has undertaken their own form of community-led planning in a post-disaster environment. Through group observations and in-depth interviews with members of SPRIG, I was able to identify various roles for such groups in the post-disaster recovery process. My research also contributes to an enhanced understanding of the process a community group might follow to implement their own form of post-disaster recovery planning, with the main point being that any planning should be done side by side with local authorities. Finally, I discovered that a community group will face organisational, community and institutional challenges when trying to plan for their area; however, despite these challenges, opportunities exist, such as the chance to build a better future.
The devastating earthquakes of September 2010 and February 2011 have without question upset the Christchurch City way of life for all. Families and businesses, as well as the natural and built environments have been directly affected, and our social landscapes have since evolved to accommodate the visible changes. Though not perhaps seen as a priority, the Christchurch nightlife has been profoundly altered by the quakes and the once popular CBD clubbing scene has ceased to exist. The concern highlighted in this article is the way in which this has put pressure on suburban bars and the the implications of this for local residents.
The recent earthquakes in Canterbury have left thousands of Christchurch residents’ homeless or facing the possibility of homelessness. The New Zealand Government, so far, have announced that 5,100 homes in Christchurch will have to be abandoned as a result of earthquake damaged land (Christchurch City Council, 2011). They have been zoned red on the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) map and there are another 10,000 that have been zoned orange, awaiting a decision (Christchurch City Council, 2011). This situation has placed pressures on land developers and local authorities to speed up the process associated with the development of proposed subdivisions in Christchurch to accommodate residents in this situation (Tarrant, 2011).
Within four weeks of the September 4 2010 Canterbury Earthquake a new, loosely-knit community group appeared in Christchurch under the banner of “Greening the Rubble.” The general aim of those who attended the first few meetings was to do something to help plug the holes that had already appeared or were likely to appear over the coming weeks in the city fabric with some temporary landscaping and planting projects. This article charts the first eighteen months of Greening the Rubble and places the initiative in a broader context to argue that although seismic events in Christchurch acted as a “call to palms,” so to speak, the city was already in need of some remedial greening. It concludes with a reflection on lessons learned to date by GTR and commentary on the likely issues ahead for this new mini-social-environmental movement in the context of a quake-affected and still quake-prone major New Zealand city. One of the key lessons for GTR and all of those involved in Christchurch recovery activities to date is that the city is still very much in the middle of the event and is to some extent a laboratory for seismic and agency management studies alike.
With the recent innovation and development within Christchurch following the earthquakes there have been suggestions of developing an ethnic precinct or 'Chinatown' within the city. This article explores the possibility of this and its potential benefits.
The topic of ‘resilience’ thinking seems of late to have superseded that of ‘sustainability’ thinking. Sustainability means simply that which sustains and lasts but has taken on many different subtle nuances over the last 20 years since it came into common parlance with the Bruntland Report of 1987, which sought to clarify the definition. However, resilience ‘speak’ has become hot property now, especially highlighted since Christchurch experienced a natural disaster in the form of several large earthquakes from Sep 2010 until most recently in December 2011. Many people comment on how resilient people have been, how resilient the city has been, so it seems timely to investigate what resilience actually means and importantly, resilient to what and of what? (Lorenz, 2010).
This essay will look at the concept of systems and resilience, definitions and theories will be explored generally and then these concepts will be more closely defined within the context of a particular system, that of Somerfield School located in the western suburbs of Christchurch.
The September and February earthquakes were terrifying and devastating. In February, 185 people were killed (this number excludes post earthquake related deaths) and several thousand injured. Damage to infrastructure above and below ground in and around Christchurch was widespread and it will take many years and billions of dollars to rebuild.
The ongoing effects of the big quakes and aftershocks are numerous, with the deepest impact being on those who lost family and friends, their livelihoods and homes.
What did Cantabrians do during the days, weeks and months of uncertainty and how have we responded? Many grieved, some left, some stayed, some arrived, many shovelled (liquefaction left thousands of tons of silt to be removed from homes and streets), and some used their expertise or knowledge to help in the recovery.
This book highlights just some of the projects staff and students from The Faculty of Environment, Society and Design have been involved in from September 2010 to October 2012. The work is ongoing and the plan is to publish another book to document progress and new projects.
An emerging water crisis is on the horizon and is poised to converge with several other impending problems in the 21st century. Future uncertainties such as climate change, peak oil and peak water are shifting the international focus from a business as usual approach to an emphasis on sustainable and resilient strategies that better meet these challenges. Cities are being reimagined in new ways that take a multidisciplinary approach, decompartmentalising functions and exploring ways in which urban systems can share resources and operate more like natural organisms. This study tested the landscape design implications of wastewater wetlands in the urban environment and evaluated their contribution to environmental sustainability, urban resilience and social development. Black and grey water streams were the central focus of this study and two types of wastewater wetlands, tidal flow (staged planning) and horizontal subsurface flow wetlands were tested through design investigations in the earthquake-affected city of Christchurch, New Zealand. These investigations found that the large area requirements of wastewater wetlands can be mitigated through landscape designs that enhance a matrix of open spaces and corridors in the city.
Wastewater wetlands when combined with other urban and rural services such as food production, energy generation and irrigation can aid in making communities more resilient. Landscape theory suggests that the design of wastewater wetlands must meet cultural thresholds of beauty and that the inclusion of waste and ecologies in creatively designed landscapes can deepen our emotional connection to nature and ourselves.
