Friday marks 1000 days since the first quake
Hon Gerry Brownlee
Minister for Canterbury
Earthquake Recovery
30 May 2013 Media Statement
Friday marks 1000 days since the first quake
Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee says this Friday will be a special one for Cantabrians as it marks a thousand days since the first violent earthquake that triggered so much upheaval for the region’s people.
“To mark the milestone I’d like to thank all those who have helped in whatever capacity, from voluntary to official, in responding to the earthquakes and helping shape the recovery that is so clearly underway,” Mr Brownlee says.
“It’s not easy to comprehend the sheer scale of this event, so I’ve highlighted 100 things big and small that paint a picture of the scope of the Government’s response.
“I could list many more examples of great commitment to Canterbury at a local level and nationally,” Mr Brownlee says.
“Rebuilding Christchurch is one of this Government’s four priorities for this term and a huge amount will be done over the next 1000 days to see that achieved for the benefit of the region’s people.
“But now is a good time to reflect on just how far we’ve come, some tragic losses, and to acknowledge how much energy and passion thousands of people have put into the recovery.”
ENDS
100 responses in 1000 days of
action
Since 4 September 2010 we have:
1.
Passed two pieces of special legislation allowing the Crown
to respond appropriately to the Canterbury earthquakes
2.
Established a dedicated government department, the
Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority
3.
Passed 24 Orders in Council to amend or suspend laws to
affect timely recovery
4. Hosted 250 public
community meetings, speaking to at least 30,000 people
5.
Had the Ministry of Social Development begin an outbound
calling campaign to evaluate the immediate needs of older
and vulnerable members of the community and get help to
them. Contact was made with over 20,000 people this way in
the days after the February earthquake
6. Zoned
181,000 residential properties in greater Christchurch
according to degree of land damage
7. Created a
website identifying residents’ land zoning,
landcheck.org.nz
8. Received an incredible 5.11
million views over its first 24 hours of the
landcheck.org.nz website operating
9. Hosted two
expos covering insurance advice, council information and a
winter wellness programme
10. Hosted a Rebuild and
Recovery Expo attended by over 5000 people
11. Held
43 residential red zone land decision meetings for thousands
of residents
12. Held 20 residential red zone offer
workshops for hundreds of residents
13. Held 10
other red zone-related meetings
14. Held two orange
zone meetings for people awaiting final zoning
15.
Held six residential green zone land decision meetings to
inform residents what the zoning meant for them
16.
Held 43 residential green zone technical land category
meetings
17. Held 21 Port Hills white zone meetings
explaining the basis for investigating final zoning
18.
Held 15 Accessible City Transport briefings for members of
the public
19. Held 15 special workshops with
professional and technical experts on a range of issues
related to geology, geotechnical investigations and
information we believed the residents of greater
Christchurch wanted to know
20. Produced 320
different CERA publications
21. Produced and
distributed over 1 million CERA newsletters highlighting
major recovery news and initiatives
22. Produced
and distributed 36,000 CERA information and assistance
brochures to specifically inform residents of the Crown
offers, Technical Category 3 information, earthquake support
services and other information about recovery
23.
Translated our factsheets and brochures into seven different
languages; Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Samoan,
Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese and Tongan
24.
Sent out 6160 CERA tweets
25. Held two celebrity
bike races to celebrate the re-opening of key city
streets
26. Zoned 7860 homes red, as being on land
unsuitable for residential occupation, and to date have
entered into sales and purchase agreements with 7082
property owners
27. Carried out maintenance at 6021
residential red zone properties
28. Overseen
demolition or removal of 2153 houses in the residential red
zone
29. Completed vegetation scopes of 795
properties and identified 975 individual trees and plants
that will stay in place
30. Planted 12 tonnes of
grass seed in the CBD and the residential red zone as part
of our clearance and maintenance programme
31.
Removed and recycled 200,000 metres of fencing from red zone
properties
32. Spent $1.2 billion purchasing
residential red zone properties and been so proud to see
those people moving into warm homes on safer ground – most
of them still in Christchurch. That’s right, they
didn’t leave!
33. Completed 30 individual cordon
reductions
34. Reduced the CBD cordon by 352
hectares
35. Demolished 1470 commercial buildings
across the CBD and suburbs
36. Assisted 196,000
public visitors into the Cathedral Square area via bus tours
and walking tours
37. Registered 7309 cases with
Earthquake Support Co-ordinators
38. Answered
13,000 calls to the 0800 Earthquake Support phone
number
39. Undertaken 15,188 appointments through
the Avondale and Kaiapoi earthquake assistance hubs
40.
Built a temporary stadium in 100 days – a stadium which
this weekend will receive its 300,000th paid customer
41.
Hosted 20,000 local kids and parents at a free stadium open
day with a range of fun events and refreshments
42.
Ordered 301 emergency demolitions through Civil
Defence
43. Established the Canterbury Earthquake
Temporary Accommodation Service (CETAS)
44.
Assisted with 3392 CETAS requests for accommodation
45.
Built three temporary accommodation villages with a fourth
under construction, which will bring the number of dwellings
available for temporary stays while houses are being
repaired to 123
46. Had over 350 households stay in
our temporary villages
47. Granted 2163 temporary
accommodation allowances, equating to an average $333,614
being paid each week
48. Issued 97 CERA press
releases
49. Issued 127 Ministerial press releases
50. Live-streamed seven press conferences
51.
Responded to over 4500 individual media enquires
52.
Conducted a Wellbeing Survey in conjunction with local
councils, the Canterbury District Health Board, and Ngai
Tahu which 2381 residents completed
53. Published
the Wellbeing Survey’s results and put in place
initiatives to address areas identified as needing greater
effort
54. Co-ordinated 70 ‘Summer of Fun’
events over summers of 2011 and 2012 for kids and families
hit by the quakes, many of them in Christchurch’s eastern
suburbs
55. Received 682 Facebook likes for the
‘Summer of Fun’ events, and 2874 likes on the main CERA
page
56. Hosted over 30,000 local kids and parents
at those ‘Summer of Fun’ events
57. Hosted 200
emergency services personnel and their families at a
Christmas lunch
58. Posted 158 educational and
informational videos on the CERA website, ranging from five
minutes to two hours in duration, resulting in 230,237
individual viewings
59. Had 521 of those videos
shared by viewers through their own social media channels
60. Got agreements in place to purchase $228
million worth of central city land so we can build the
anchor projects identified in the Christchurch Central
Recovery Plan
61. Got contracts or agreements in
principle now achieved for 43.4 per cent of the total land
area required for the anchor projects
62. Reached
final settlement on 31 CBD properties required for the
city’s rebuild
63. Signed contracts for the
purchase of a further 33 properties
64. And
reached agreement in principle with the owners of another 48
properties
65. Spent $231.6 million on CBD land
purchases required for rebuilding the city
66.
Begun construction on the first phase of the Avon River
Precinct
67. Got seven onsite Development Plans
approved for the CBD’s Retail Precinct
68.
Completed a draft concept design of the East Frame – one
of the priority anchor projects in the CBD
69.
Released an Expression of Interest document for potential
tenants of the city’s Innovation Precinct
70.
Sent 1100 big yellow Amazing Place resource packs to
Canterbury school children so they could compete in
designing what we think will be the coolest kids’
playground anywhere in the world
71. Had 6000
Canterbury children take part in the Amazing Place
Playground Competition – and we thank every single one of
them
72. Announced that the playground will be
named in honour of the amazing children’s author Margaret
Mahy ONZ
73. Completed over 96,000 EQC repairs in
total, including emergency repairs
74. Installed
18,740 heating systems
75. Received a total of
467,135 EQC claims, 116,660 of which have been settled and
closed
76. Paid out $5.3 billion in EQC claims
77. Established the Stronger Christchurch
Infrastructure Rebuild Team (SCIRT), an alliance of CERA,
Christchurch City Council, NZ Transport Agency, as well as
City Care, Downer, Fletcher, Fulton Hogan and McConnell
Dowell, to fix Christchurch’s destroyed underground water
and wastewater infrastructure, and the battered roads
78.
Completed 257 SCIRT projects worth $122 million dollars
79. Laid 23 km of fresh water pipe – that’s 33
per cent of the fresh water damage repaired
80.
Laid 161 km of wastewater pipe – 24 per cent of the damage
81. Laid 10 km of storm water pipe – 40 per cent
of required repairs
82. Laid 211,083 square metres
of road pavement – that’s only 16 per cent of the work
to be done
83. Had 8978 face-to-face interactions
with locals about SCIRT work
84. Distributed 1382
SCIRT work notices to 353,637 residents
85. Got
another 129 SCIRT projects worth $467 million dollars
underway
86. Issued 33,000 CERA passes to
individuals
87. Issued 1500 of those CERA passes
for access to the residential red zone
88. Issued
over 200,000 renewals of CERA passes
89. Held 18
elected members’ meetings for 120 councillors, community
board members, CDHB members, Ngai Tahu representatives and
Environment Canterbury commissioners
90. Received
1958 letters to the Minister and 1377 letters to CERA’s
chief executive
91. Responded to 22 oral and 197
written Parliamentary questions about earthquake
recovery
92. Received 593 requests under the
Official Information Act
93. Funded dozens of key
exporters to rapidly visit their key clients overseas so
they knew their businesses were open, and how much their
custom would help the recovery. This resulted in a
continued flow of business, and in some cases resulted in
new business
94. Directly supported 8000 businesses
and 63,500 individuals (employees and sole traders)
95.
Paid $214 million in wage subsidies following the September
2010 and February 2011 earthquakes, which bought businesses
time to adjust to the events and avoided massive
redundancies which would have caused great harm to
Christchurch’s economy
96. Established the
Christchurch Earthquake Appeal Trust, which has raised over
$100 million in pledged and received funds and has funded
more than 100 projects so far
97. Helped bring
business back to the CBD by launching the Re:START container
mall project, with a $3.36 million interest-free loan from
the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal Trust to help fund
it
98. Completed the Government share offer of
Mighty River Power, which raised $1.7 billion for the Future
Investment Fund, which will help fund important rebuild
activities including more than $900 million in new capital
funding for Christchurch including the Christchurch and
Burwood hospitals redevelopment, funding for the justice and
emergency services precinct, and tertiary education
institutions
99. Announced a $600 million plus
redevelopment of the Christchurch and Burwood Hospitals,
with the Government contributing $426 million towards
it
100. Announced the Government is investing $1
billion in restoring and renewing the education sector in
greater Christchurch, including building or rebuilding 16
schools
ENDS