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Research papers, Lincoln University

‘Housing affordability’ has been a term used to refer to a problem that arises when the costs of housing are seen as being unreasonably high in relation to incomes. In the United Kingdom and Australia the local town planning systems have been used to address housing affordability issues. This response in countries that share New Zealand’s town and country planning history raised the question for this research of the local government response to housing affordability issues in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. This research was undertaken during the fifth year after the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquake series. Research conducted by the Centre for Housing Research Aotearoa New Zealand and the New Zealand Productivity Commission present quite different pictures of the housing affordability problem, suggest different solutions and indicate different roles for levels of government, the community housing sector and the housing market. The research undertaken for this dissertation aimed to address the question of the role of the state, through the lense of a local response to housing affordability issues, in the context of a central government response focused on land supply and reforming the Resource Management Act 1991.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

As the future of the world’s oil reserves becomes progressively more uncertain, it is becoming increasingly important that steps are taken to ensure that there are viable, attractive alternatives to travel by private motor vehicle. As with many of New Zealand’s major urban centres, Christchurch is still exceptionally reliant on private motor vehicles; although a significant proportion of the population indicate that they would like to cycle more, cycling is still an underutilised mode of transport. Following a series of fatal earthquakes that struck the city in 2010 and 2011, there has been the need to significantly redevelop much of the city’s horizontal infrastructure – subsequently providing the perfect platform for significant changes to be made to the road network. Many of the key planning frameworks governing the rebuild process have identified the need to improve Christchurch’s cycling facilities in order to boost cycling numbers and cyclist safety. The importance of considering future growth and travel patterns when planning for transport infrastructure has been highlighted extensively throughout literature. Accordingly, this study sought to identify areas where future cycle infrastructure development would be advantageous based on a number of population and employment projections, and likely future travel patterns throughout the city. Through the use of extensive GIS analysis, future population growth, employment and travel patterns for Christchurch city were examined in order to attain an understanding of where the current proposed major cycleways network could be improved, or extended. A range of data and network analysis were used to derive likely travel patterns throughout Christchurch in 2041. Trips were derived twice, once with a focus on simply finding the shortest route between each origin and destination, and then again with a focus on cyclist safety and areas where cyclists were unlikely to travel. It was found that although the proposed major cycleways network represents a significant step towards improving the cycling environment in Christchurch, there are areas of the city that will not be well serviced by the current proposed network in 2041. These include a number of key residential growth areas such as Halswell, Belfast and Prestons, along with a number of noteworthy key travel zones, particularly in areas close to the central city and key employment areas. Using network analysis, areas where improvements or extensions to the proposed network would be most beneficial were identified, and a number of potential extensions in a variety of areas throughout the city were added to the network of cycle ways. Although it has been found that filling small gaps in the network can have considerable positive outcomes, results from the prioritisation analysis suggested that initially in Christchurch demand is likely to be for more substantial extensions to the proposed major cycleways network.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Organisations play a vital role in assisting communities to recover from disasters. They are the key providers of goods and services needed in both response and recovery efforts. They provide the employment which both anchors people to place and supports the taxation base to allow for necessary recovery spending. Finally, organisations are an integral part of much day to day functioning contributing immensely to people’s sense of ‘normality’ and psychological wellbeing. Yet, despite their overall importance in the recovery process, there are significant gaps in our existing knowledge with regard to how organisations respond and recover following disaster. This research fills one part of this gap by examining collaboration as an adaptive strategy enacted by organisations in the Canterbury region of New Zealand, which was heavily impacted by a series of major earthquakes, occurring in 2010 and 2011. Collaboration has been extensively investigated in a variety of settings and from numerous disciplinary perspectives. However, there are few studies that investigate the role of collaborative approaches to support post-disaster business recovery. This study investigates the type of collaborations that have occurred and how they evolved as organisations reacted to the resource and environmental change caused by the disaster. Using data collected through semi-structured interviews, survey and document analysis, a rich and detailed picture of the recovery journey is created for 26 Canterbury organisations including 14 collaborators, six non-traders, five continued traders and one new business. Collaborations included two or more individual businesses collaborating along with two multi-party, place based projects. Comparative analysis of the organisations’ experiences enabled the assessment of decisions, processes and outcomes of collaboration, as well as insight into the overall process of business recovery. This research adopted a primarily inductive, qualitative approach, drawing from both grounded theory and case study methodologies in order to generate theory from this rich and contextually situated data. Important findings include the importance of creating an enabling context which allows organisations to lead their own recovery, the creation of a framework for effective post-disaster collaboration and the importance of considering both economic and other outcomes. Collaboration is found to be an effective strategy enabling resumption of trade at a time when there seemed few other options available. While solving this need, many collaborators have discovered significant and unexpected benefits not just in terms of long term strategy but also with regard to wellbeing. Economic outcomes were less clear-cut. However, with approximately 70% of the Central Business District demolished and rebuilding only gaining momentum in late 2014, many organisations are still in a transition stage moving towards a new ‘normal’.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Following the Mw 6.2 Christchurch Earthquake on 22 February 2011, extensive ground cracking in loessial soils was reported in some areas of the Port Hills, southeast of central Christchurch. This study was undertaken to investigate the mechanisms of earthquake-induced ground damage on the eastern side of the Hillsborough Valley. A zone of extensional cracking up to 40m wide and 600m long was identified along the eastern foot-slope, accompanied by compression features and spring formation at the toe of the slope. An engineering geological and geomorphological model was developed for the eastern Hillsborough Valley that incorporates geotechnical investigation data sourced from the Canterbury Geotechnical Database (CGD), the findings of trenching and seismic refraction surveying carried out for this research, and interpretation of historical aerial photographs. The thickness and extent of a buried peat swamp at the base of the slope was mapped, and found to coincide with significant compression features. Ground cracking was found to have occurred entirely within loess-colluvium and to follow the apices of pre-1920s tunnel-gully fan debris at the southern end of the valley. The ground-cracking on the eastern side of the Hillsborough Valley is interpreted to have formed through tensile failure of the loess-colluvium. Testing was carried out to determine the tensile strength of Port Hills loess colluvium as a function of water content and density, in order to better understand the occurrence and distribution of the observed ground cracking. A comprehensive review of the soil tensile strength testing literature was undertaken, from which a test methodology was developed. Results show remoulded loess-colluvium to possess tensile strength of 7 - 28 kPa across the range of tested moisture contents (10-15%) and dry densities (1650-1900kg/m3). A positive linear relationship was observed between tensile strength and dry density, and a negative linear relationship between moisture content and tensile strength. The observed ground damage and available geotechnical information (inclinometer and piezometer records provided by the Earthquake Commission) were together used to interpret the mechanism(s) of slope movement that occurred in the eastern Hillsborough Valley. The observed ground damage is characteristic of translational movement, but without the development of lateral release scarps, or a basal sliding surface - which was not located during drilling. It is hypothesised that shear displacement has been accommodated by multiple slip surfaces of limited extent within the upper 10m of the slope. Movement has likely occurred within near-saturated colluvial units that have lost strength during earthquake shaking. The eastern Hillsborough Valley is considered to be an ‘incipient translational slide’, as both the patterns of damage and shearing are consistent with the early stages of such slide development. Sliding block analysis was utilised to understand how the eastern Hillsborough Valley may perform in a future large magnitude earthquake. Known cumulative displacements of ~0.3m for eastern Hillsborough Valley during the 2010-2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence were compared with modelled slope displacements to back-analyse a lower-bound yield acceleration of 0.2 - 0.25g. Synthetic broadband modelling for future Alpine and Hope Fault earthquakes indicates PGAs of approximately 0.08g for soil sites in the Christchurch area, as such, slope movement is unlikely to be reactivated by an Alpine Fault or Hope Fault earthquake. This does not take into account the possible role of strength loss due to excess pore pressure that may occur during these future events.

Research papers, University of Canterbury Library

Following the 2010-2011 Canterbury (New Zealand) earthquake sequence, lightly reinforced wall structures in the Christchurch central business district were observed to form undesirable crack patterns in the plastic hinge region, while yield penetration either side of cracks and into development zones was less than predicted using empirical expressions. To some extent this structural behaviour was unexpected and has therefore demonstrated that there may be less confidence in the seismic performance of conventionally designed reinforced concrete (RC) structures than previously anticipated. This paper provides an observation-based comparison between the behaviour of RC structural components in laboratory testing and the unexpected structural behaviour of some case study buildings in Christchurch that formed concentrated inelastic deformations. The unexpected behaviour and poor overall seismic performance of ‘real’ buildings (compared to the behaviour of laboratory test specimens) was due to the localization of peak inelastic strains, which in some cases has arguably led to: (i) significantly less ductility capacity; (ii) less hysteretic energy dissipation; and (iii) the fracture of the longitudinal reinforcement. These observations have raised concerns about whether lightly reinforced wall structures can satisfy the performance objective of “Life Safety” at the Ultimate Limit State. The significance of these issues and potential consequences has prompted a review of potential problems with the testing conditions and procedures that are commonly used in seismic experimentations on RC structures. This paper attempts to revisit the principles of RC mechanics, in particular, the influence of loading history, concrete tensile strength, and the quantity of longitudinal reinforcement on the performance of real RC structures. Consideration of these issues in future research on the seismic performance of RC might improve the current confidence levels in newly designed conventional RC structures.