Channel 9 News, 17 Oct 2008
James Higham is a Tourism lecturer at the University of Otago who has recently given a thought-provoking seminar on the obsession of construction.
Using the current stadium debate as his case study, Higham shows that Dunedin’s problem is also a global one.
Otago Daily Times, 15 Oct 2008
Dunedin’s stadium project has a new name, and the Carisbrook Stadium Trust is about to start a marketing blitz to raise the rest of the private sector funding it needs to build the facility.
The Otago Stadium has been chosen as an interim name to differentiate between the new stadium and Carisbrook, and to emphasise a stadium for the whole southern region, commercial manager Guy Hedderwick said at a press conference yesterday to launch the campaign.
The final name would depend on negotiation with a naming rights sponsor, and Mr Hedderwick said it was unknown at this stage what it might be, and whether Carisbrook would be part of it….
The trust said on Monday 20% of formal contracts that had been sent out had been returned, equating to $22.2 million or 49% of the target, with 20% of available lounge memberships and 25% of corporate suites taken….
Products included corporate suites for up to 24 people costing $45,000 a year, “open club reserves” for eight or 12 people costing $15,000 a year, and 1850 lounge memberships at $1500 a year.
Otago Daily Times, 11 Oct 2008
Chief executive Richard Reid says Otago rugby has lost $1.5 million during the past two years and the union has to make its financial health a priority….
He reveals the amount of cash the Otago Rugby Football Union has lost and “makes no apologies” for trimming $900,000 off its expenses this year.
“In simple terms, we have spent more than we have earned and have borrowed against our asset base [Carisbrook] to fund the business,” Mr Reid writes….
Otago finished a disappointing 10th in the Air New Zealand Cup, failing to make the play-offs.
Mr Reid admits the public has been starved of success on the field and mistakes have been made in recruitment and retention.
Otago Daily Times, 1 Oct 08
The Carisbrook stadium and the Athenaeum building in Dunedin have both been registered as category 1 historic buildings by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust (NZHPT), despite derision of the proposal by the Dunedin City Council…..
Carisbrook’s registration related to the playing field and the turnstile building in Neville St.
“Carisbrook has worldwide recognition as a sporting venue. When you mention Carisbrook to people around the world the immediate link to Dunedin is made.”…
The DCC opposed the registration of both sites, and the NZHPT’s decision to go ahead was described by councillors in August as “stupid”, “barmy” and “ludicrous”.
The council has argued it may redevelop the Carisbrook site if the Awatea St stadium goes ahead….
Dunedin Deputy Mayor Syd Brown said he was not too concerned about the Carisbrook registration, as he did not see it as much of an impediment to future development there….
Mr Graham [NZHPT] said registrations did not offer any protection to the sites, unless the council listed them in its district plan, a challenge he would like it to take up.
That decision will be up to councillors.
Otago Daily Times, 30 Sep 2008
Creative reuse of Carisbrook after the rugby ends could include installing wind turbines on lighting towers and establishing a retirement village called “Carebrook”, brainstorming university students suggested yesterday.
Five groups of master of planning students from the University of Otago geography department made presentations about their research on the options for reusing Carisbrook to a high-powered group of Dunedin City Council officials, including chief executive Jim Harland and several city councillors….
Dr Janet Stephenson, a senior lecturer in geography who co-ordinates a planning paper being studied by the students, said they had been given the scenario the proposed new Dunedin stadium was going ahead and a new use for Carisbrook would be required.
Most of the three-strong student groups suggested retaining the Carisbrook playing area as open space, including as a community park….
Another group effectively argued to “bring back the brook” by allowing water currently piped under the complex to flow through it as a stream, as part of project landscaping
Letter to the Editor, Otago Daily Times, 25 Sep 2008
Having taken a prominent part in the administration of the initial Dunedin Indoor Stadium, I have been following the issue of the proposed Awatea Street stadium with much interest. In earlier days, we had little or no ratepayer funding support and had to contend with many of the issues now facing the new promoters.
Although I can boast a lifetime of enthusiastic support for the welfare of the Dunedin (and Otago and Southland) communities, it does appear to me that the present project is overambitious in terms of ratepayer funding. Any analysis wil show that the per capita ratepayer commitment towards initial capital funding - and perhaps even more important still maintenance expenditures - far exceeds that adopted in the northern centres, including Hamilton. And there will be significant drainage of available community trust gifting and container port earnings that could be diverted in other directions.
In addition, the potential attendance “catchment” for the combined Otago and Southland provinces falls well short of the conveniently located populations surrounding Christchurch, Wellington, Hamilton and Auckland. Furthermore, the temporarily accommodated tertiary education student population can at best provide only seasonal attendance potential. I could provide some comparative figures but will leave that to others.
The operating expenses will necessitate relatively high ticket prices and this will rule out attendance of many at the more high-profile functions. I concur with regional councillor Michael Deaker that the likely occupancy rate for this vast arena will be very low as compared, for example, with that of the Westpac Stadium in Wellington.
Dunedin (and Otago) have other much more pressing priorities for local-body funding support that this rather extravagant venture. I still believe Carisbrook could be suitably upgraded at a fraction of the cost and that the university/polytechnic authorities could make better use of the property now assembled. It is time to pull the plug now.
Jolyon Manning
Alexandra
The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on, nor all your piety nor wit, shall lure it back to cancel half-a-line. [Ed: From poem by 12th century Persian poet and philosopher Omar Khayam]
Old ‘Omar’ knew a thing-or-two. From time immemorial, even when earth was still a slowly cooling mass of half molten iron-rich basalt and granite, time has inexorably marched-on.
Time’s revenge, on Carisbrook, was the catalyst for what is now seen as the ‘Stadium Debate’. But a worthwhile contribution to ‘debate’ demands that all participants should have access to information. Those who have been elected to oversee our interests, crucially, have the most right of all to be kept up-with-play, especially on an issue with the damage-causing potential of this project. Yet, it seems, obtaining information from the Carisbrook Stadium Trust, could be likened to pulling teeth; nothing short of a crow-bar seems to have much effect. Is there a reason for deadlines not being met, information not being available for Council meetings and yet another ‘presentation’ by the CST’s most visible proponent as a substitute for accessible, concrete facts on-the-table? Is this the case; if so, how has that been allowed to come about?
The answer might well lie on the ‘skyscrapercity’ web-site. I made the mistake of following the link from ‘Stop the Stadium’ to this site to try and gauge the state of public-opinion. A big mistake, as it happens; all I found was a series of pathetic juvenile attempts at one-upmanship. The one piece of sanity in the whole depressing spectacle lay in the attempts of the moderator, ‘Ugly Bob,’ to bring some sense of reasoned discussion to proceedings. I gave up on the ‘blog’, which is a pity, but if I want to sample the ravings of people, who are so patently ‘in-need-of-a-life’ (which I don’t), there are more effective ways of doing it.
However, we should all feel beholden to ‘Ugly Bob’ for putting onto the site, (page 42), a series of revised graphics which make it clear, that what most Dunedin people think they stand to get, if the Stadium goes-ahead, will be light-years from what they had in mind. The revised ‘building’ is a large ‘tent’, there’s no other word for it. There is, on the South side, a ‘stand’, it is true, but the other four sides of the rectangle appear to be occupied by nothing more than sloping terraces. Onto these, presumably, prefabricated rows of relocatable seating will be put on ‘Match Days’. At other times, they are to be stored in ‘containers’ under-the-stands. The roof, if it finally has one, encloses the entire complex, and comprises the only weather protection for three of the four spectator areas. From ground-level, the graphics show an imposing substantial ‘building’. Every trick of perspective has been brought to bear to emphasise the ‘size’ of the complex, but don’t go looking for detail, there isn’t any. Details of the ‘interiors’, fade-out quickly with increasing distance from the viewpoint. As an exercise to appeal to the easily-impressed, eg the emphasis of ‘size’ and ‘scale’, it succeeds. To inform? Forget it; it’s back to the ‘smoke and mirrors’, again.
The thing which disturbs me, is that this is the only place I have been able to view these ‘graphics’, they are notably missing, in my experience, from all pro-Stadium publicity. To put this in perspective, it is useful to go back to the hype and ‘bull’ of the heady days of the initial announcement. You remember the time, it was 2006. The very first entry in the ‘blog’ paints a glowing picture of what we thought we had in store at that time. What a sad let-down the ‘reality’ is by comparison. The ‘Moving finger’ has done it no favours.
But, there’s even better to come. Fresh from ‘skyscrapercity’, I took the trouble to read, carefully, the ‘pdf’ which features on the Stop-the-Stadium’ web-site, to find out just what we stand to get for the projected vast expenditure. I clearly recall one of Malcolm Farry’s objections to money being spent at Carisbrook, being the ‘lack of provision for an Electronic Scoreboard’. That made me keen to see what had been allowed for in the new scheme-of-things; and yes, it rates a mention. We’ll, apparently, hire one, ‘as and when required’. What of the antiquated Carisbrook turnstiles, which I recall being another matter of contention earlier-on. Well, flag-away the modern system, integrated with the ticketing we were led to believe lay in store-for-us. It too has evaporated and in its place a glitzy set of new shiny, but ‘manual’ ones, lies in store. The Conference Centre, fitted out to International standards of convenience and amenities? Not-bloody-likely, it has now shrunk to being ‘an area in which conferences could be held’, presumably, with a tent-roof over-head. You have to concede them this; it’s got ‘novelty-value’.
But better is to come. The ‘building’ now features five hideous bow-shaped trusses, which are shown clearly in the view from ‘overhead’. There was, as I recall, no such aesthetic excrescence visible externally, on the original, (and still widely-used), graphics. We are informed, that the ETFE material which is, effectively, the exterior cladding, is able to be ‘patched’, and so areas which have succumbed to the effects of ‘Ultra-violet’ or wear-and-tear, will simply be cut-away and a ‘patch’ applied. (I had bike-tubes like that, when I was a kid). ‘They’ve really thought of everything’.
But, and it’s a big ‘But’; the poll which was taken to gauge citizen-support in the heady days when the ‘Stadium’ was going to ‘save-our-city’, was made on the basis of ambitious projections which issued from the C.S.T. in a never-ending stream, almost daily. There were rumblings, even then, that the poll’s ‘questions’ had a bit of the old ‘Have you stopped beating your Wife’ aura about them. Even with that advantage, it would be fair to say that there was, at best, a roughly fifty-fifty split in favour of the Stadium going-ahead. It is a near-certainty that any deviation from an equal split, fell within the margin-of-error which usually applies to such exercises. That does not, to me, indicate a clear ratepayer mandate for this project to go-ahead. I have spoken to numbers of people on this matter, and the level of support, as far as I can see, does not justify claims that there is the support for it to proceed further. The poll in question was made on the basis of the glowing picture painted, for our benefit, by agencies of the C.S.T. What would be the outcome of a poll which was to be based on the situation as it is now beginning to unfold?. Claims, by Stadium proponents, of the support of a ‘Silent Majority’, a mythical entity constantly alluded to, but harder to pin-down than a live Unicorn, don’t hold-water. It’s not hard to see where the resistance to a citizen-initiated referendum on the matter comes from.
So, the strategy has been to keep as much as possible ‘under-wraps’ and on the day of the opening, when all the civic dignitaries are having their day-in-the-limelight we, the gaping yokels, will be able to front-up and say what we will all really feel, (‘Is that it?’), secure in the knowledge that we will spend the next twenty years paying for it to the virtual exclusion of all-else, while our city stagnates in everything which currently makes it a worthwhile place to live.
It would be nice to be able to look to the City Council for leadership and some measure of fiscal responsibility. The prospect of that, seems more remote by-the-day, and so, is too depressing to even contemplate. There are two reasons why planning for Awatea Street has moved into top-gear. Firstly, it is seen as necessary to get the scheme as far down- the-track as possible, before the public has had time to come to its senses. The official reason, is urgency to have everything in-place by the time of the 2011 ‘World Cup’.
What do you know of ‘World Cups’? They are held under the auspices of the I.R.B. which will, at the conclusion of the exercise, say ‘Thank you! Kiss my arse!’ and hightail-it back to Europe with the lion’s share of the takings. The NZRFU could actually have participated in ‘dry-run’ for hosting this event two ‘Cups’ back, by participating in a joint-venture with the Australians. Sheer incompetence on the part of our administrators, meant that the burden fell upon Australia, which seized it with undisguised glee. There are considerable misgivings, on the part of the I.R.B., about the NZRFU’s ability to host the 2011 event already. Ex All-Black Stu Wilson has pointed that out, (to those prepared to listen), and added a prediction that, even in the event of the 2011 event being a glowing success, there will never be another ‘Cup’ available to New Zealand. We may ‘rate’ ourselves as a ‘Rugby’ nation, and possibly with considerable justification, but we are about as remote from the real engine-room of the Rugby World as it is possible to get. So, the whole thing is being propelled by the urgency to rush-into-existence a Stadium, for what will, almost certainly, be a one-off event. Sorry, but that doesn’t make a great deal of sense, to me. It’s the ‘Olympics’ all over again. Our chance to experience the downside of the euphoria which accompanies the initial awarding of the ‘Games’ by the International Olympic Committee. Just ask Athens.
We are told daily that, with a Stadium, Dunedin will be able to again, ‘hold-its-head-up’ amongst New Zealand’s major cities. Excuse me, for not being aware that our heads were ‘down’. What are we apologising for? Could it be the lack of traffic-constipation, or a daily murder or two, in cities like dysfunctional Auckland? Would we seriously contemplate Wellington, or Christchurch? If so, why are we here? It’s not the climate, at least, not in winter. This matter of ‘holding our heads high’ rather amuses me. On the one hand, without the Stadium, we are a ‘lost-people’: On the other, we have the spectacle of the CST’s chief publicist, going cap-in-hand to the NZRFU, (that same body whose ineptitude made such a ‘pig’s-arse’ of the opportunity to host an earlier ‘World Cup’), to stand in-line and beg for a few crumbs in the way of ‘pool’ matches, and all so Pro-Stadium interests can claim justification for putting the city’s finances at extreme risk to get the ‘way’ of a handful of them. Does it make any sense to you?
But, the ‘Moving-finger’ intervenes yet again, with a cruel twist.
It’s a long story which has its origins in ‘Ninjas’. No not the ‘Mutant Turtle’ variety, but the acronym for those with ‘No-incomes - No jobs - No assets’, to which the major American Financiers have advanced vast amounts of money. When a few of our own Finance Companies took on a bit of a ‘domino’ aspect, we should have heeded the warnings, but ‘Hey, she’ll be right, it can’t happen here!’ It must be apparent to even the slow-witted, that this time, ‘she’ll not be right!’ The Corporations which are currently being sucked into the financial maelstrom are not ‘tiddlers’, they are ‘major-players’, even by world standards. It’s not long ago that a favourable credit-rating by ‘Merrell-Lynch’ was something to be coveted. How the mighty have fallen, as that firm, and others like it, make their merry way down a gurgler which has the capacity to swallow-up business enterprises on an exponentially-rising ’curve’.
‘Of course, It cannot happen here’, ignores the old dictum that ‘When Wall Street sneezes, the World catches cold’. We, in New Zealand, are living in a fool’s paradise if we think we are, in any way, insulated from the effects of an approaching deep recession, if not actual ‘depression’, by physical isolation from the ‘powerhouse’ economies of the world. Try telling anyone who does not know what it was ever like to have to get through a day without cell-phone or ‘iPod’; that there’s ‘crunch’ on its way which will rattle the fillings in their teeth. Why? Because we are a nation, which has constantly yielded to the temptations of ‘easy- credit’ to an extent, that we are either the second-highest per-capita indebted people in the O.E.C.D. or, perhaps, the highest. But, the ‘writing is on the wall’ for easy-credit, and because the capacity of an unregulated World financial order to provide its much-vaunted ‘checks and balances’ is notably absent, an international ‘correction’ is underway. Will it be a re-run of ‘The Grapes of Wrath’? [Ed: A film based on the 1939 book by John Steinbeck.] Will we have a repetition of the ‘Wardell’s food-riots’ of Depression days? [Ed: See The Depression Riots, 1932.] Possibly not; but the brand-new S.U.V. in the garage and/or the several-thousand dollars borrowed to have the most ostentatious ‘fitted-kitchen’ in the street, might not seem to have been so blindingly ‘inspirational’, eighteen months from now.
I dimly remember the depression of the thirties, as most of its effects were being offset by improvements by the time I made my appearance. Which of the austerity measures were prompted by the ‘depression’ and which were a by-product of WW2 and rationing, I don’t really recall. It was no great hardship anyway, that my mother washed, ironed-out and hemmed salt-bags to make handkerchiefs, as virtually every other kid in my class was similarly equipped. I even recall pleading with my mother to buy me ‘Brucemill’ school socks as other parents did, as the ‘queenie’ hand-knitted ones singled me out for ‘attention’. What I do recall about ‘wartime’, ‘depression’, or what-have-you, is that when everyone else is in the same boat, it tends to become ‘bearable’. (How could it not be in a district where families numbering up to nine, or more, were common).
If this is what lies in store for us, how do we best cope? The first essential in this strategy would be to take a conservative view of our finances. It has been said, that the best person to make a rational business decison, is someone suffering from mild depression, (‘bi-polar disorder’ if you believe in ‘wellness’ instead of ‘health’). That person is least likely to be influenced by hype or euphemisms, and so make a decision which is completely logical and fact-based. We had a brush in our wider family (sorry, ‘whanau’), a few years ago when a well-known pyramid-selling organisation recruited some of my relatives into their ever-positive, ‘happy-clapping’ ranks. Using a mix of psychology (largely pitched so as to appeal to greed and an ambition for higher social status), plus a good dollop of tactics adapted from ‘Old-time Religion’, they succeeded, with surprising speed, in turning my in-laws into compliant zombies. My brother-in-law was a spectacular case-in-point. He, who lived in a rural Nelson-Bays community, was going to be, in his way of it, the first to preach the gospel of the parent-company, in Mainland China. He even had a Mandarin-speaking Missionary friend, primed-up to get the thing off the ground; (something which backfired against me one day, when I asked, casually, ‘…And what’s the ‘Missionary Position’ at the moment?) But, joking aside, it was the first time I had ever seen an erstwhile, sane, sober, rather deliberate person, with eyes which positively sparkled with the light of madness.
No one is suggesting, of course, that our City Council is similarly afflicted, but there will be some justification, for taking this view, I feel, if this project is allowed to continue down the seemingly inexorable route it has taken so far. Without wishing to be a harbinger of doom, I would like to go on record, as having pointed-out that to go ahead with this project, in the face of signs from overseas which couldn’t possibly be spelled-out more clearly, is irrational sheer insanity; not perhaps brought on by the prospect of a personal ‘pyramid’ recruited from a population of 1.4 billion prospective ‘happy-clappers’, but simply defying good, old-fashioned common-sense. There has not been a less propitious time, in getting-on for eighty years, to be embarking upon a scheme of this magnitude, underpinned as it is by loan- money which it is conjectural we can afford even before the financial Tsunami hits; for the very good reason, that those effects, which are causing a few of us sleepless nights at present, are going to rocket right into our living-rooms and affect every aspect of our lives in eighteen months, or so. One ‘Depression’ in a lifetime is enough, and by the skin of my teeth I just avoided the worst negative effects of the last one. There were, of course, people worse-off, like an old friend who spent years wielding a pick, or shovel, on construction of the Homer Tunnel. Public Works Camps, in locations such as that, were not the ‘life’ that most would have chosen for themselves. It’s like the weather. ‘Climate’ is what you should have, but ‘Weather’ is what you get. Life seldom ‘deals’ equitably, or fairly.
So, to sum up, what would I like to see take place? From where I sit, there are three possible courses of action.
‘Here’s hoping’.
Ian Smith
September 2008
Opinion, Otago Daily Times, 16 Sep 2008
By Calvin Oaten
The so-called “knockers” are not opposed to progress in Dunedin but just want an injection of some commonsense and responsible fiscal management.
Time to polish off the “knockers”, said former Otago Daily Times editor Robin Charteris (ODT, 9.9.08).
Does he mean by knockers, the people who are concerned enough about the future of Dunedin as to voice their opposition to the council over its spending on grand vanity projects? Or does he think that all is well in our fair city of the South? He cites the town hall as an example of the progressive attitudes of former civic leaders.
But would that project have happened if it was to be funded 100% by debt? It is a fact that in the 1920s an industrial exhibition was mounted by some very dedicated citizens.
It was in the days before the universal use of motor cars, with the masses using public transport to travel to the venue.
So successful was the venture that Dunedin’s city tramways made a surplus over the few years.
This the council opted to use for the construction of the town hall and it was built debt free.
The railway station, of course, was constructed by the central government’s department of railways, so no citizens’ cost there.
Here’s an interesting news item from 2006, which may have been the cause of much current confusion:
August 10, 2006
By Craig Page
Carisbrook, the 130-year-old rugby ground in Dunedin, is to be abandoned in favour of a stadium costing up to $180 million in time for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
The University of Otago will be a major financial partner in the multipurpose stadium, costing between $150 million and $180 million, planned to replace Carisbrook.
The venue is likely also to become the new home for the university’s signature School of Physical Education.
The Carisbrook Stadium Trust announced last night that it had all but abandoned the option to upgrade Carisbrook in favour of replacing the stadium.
The announcement was expected, but the trust’s coup was confirmation that the university would join the project, owning part of the stadium and contributing significant financing towards it.
The Southland Times, 10 September 2008
By Nathan Burdon
Despite Carisbrook being confirmed on next year’s All Black test schedule yesterday the venue had reached its best-before date, Otago rugby boss Richard Reid said.
Dunedin will host the first of two tests between the All Blacks and France on June 13….
Carisbrook hosted the Springboks in July with a sold-out crowd of more than 29,000 in attendance, but Reid said the need for a new stadium remained….
NZRU chief executive Steve Tew said the allocation was reward for the city’s continued efforts to build a new stadium.
Reid believed the Springbok game was about more than rugby, with the region uniting to enjoy the occasion.
“It’s not about Otago rugby, it’s about the Highlanders region getting behind the Springbok game,” Reid said.