The Earthquake Commission (EQC) received 159,318 claims from the 22 February earthquake when the deadline for claims passed at midnight last night, Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee said.
“This makes the events in Canterbury since 4 September last year by far the biggest natural disaster to hit New Zealand," Brownlee said.
“As well as the 159,318 claims received for the 22 February earthquake, another 185,046 had been received relating to the 4 September earthquake and the subsequent events in October, November and December. In total EQC has received 344,364 claims for all events dating back to September last year,” he said.
There was a surge in calls to EQC claims centres in the weeks leading up to the deadline.
“Calls to the claims centres increased by about 6,000, or 27% on the previous week, so it appears EQC’s advertising and media comment urging people to make a claim worked,” Brownlee said.
No claims could be accepted for the 22 February event past midnight last night.
“Legally EQC can make no exceptions for claims put in after the deadline has passed,” Brownlee said.
EQC had paid out more than NZ$17 million dollars in claims since February and over NZ$870 million dollars since last September.
"EQC personnel are working hard to process claims as quickly as possible but the volume of claims and the necessity, for insurance purposes, to clearly determine what damage has been caused by a particular event can slow progress," Brownlee said.
EQC was still receiving claims for the aftershocks in Christchurch on 16 April (18 July deadline), 30 April (1 August) and 10 May (10 August).
15 Comments
The people in the call centre are of very little use as they are unable to access information from other areas at EQC, such as what category my house falls in after the initial assessment (was out when they came and they were supposed to leave a copy in the mailbox but...) My contents cheque has been approved and is "upstairs being processed" for over a month but they have no idea how long it will be. It's probably not their fault, but at the end of the day they are our only point of contact and they simply can't provide the answers...very frustrating!
Some ideas Hugh:
1) CERA use it's compulsory purchasing powers to buy requisite areas of land over the west side.
2) CERA divests land to special CCC owned development company. Company is JV with private and nowt to do with CDC, of course. This company oversees build of new divisions, associated commercial parks, etc.
3) CCC state a regional development bank, along the lines of The State Bank of North Dakota.
4) Use Raf's idea for funding, that is, public credit.
5) A wee piece of pm admin, that I'm sure CERA will get onto soon, develop a top-level programme plan to visually communicate to the poplice where the hell we are in the fix ChCh process. (Have checked CERA website, bugger all on there like this yet.)
6) Return proven uninhabitable land to east back to reserve. Will anyone really trust remediation? See item 1 above.
7) Have breakfast.
Cheers, Les.
that's a simplistic view that ignores the place of zoning relative to history
zoning actually made a lot of sense in the early 20th century when noxious industry was frequently located next to residential quarters, and people's health was seriously impacted . Its too easy to look back at it now and say that was an error. Similarly, the origins of suburbia in post war USA were largley based on flight from the cities for very good reasons - the inner cities of American cities were dangerous places
Zoning still has a place - there are certain land uses that should not be allowed "As of right" in residential areas (eg petrol stations) but could be considered on a case by case basis subject to resource consent
What IS needed is for zoning to become more flexible, as Hugh alludes to. The Germans have quite a flexible zoning system
Actually zoning didn't kick in until the mid 20thC, and can really be traced back to the work of Corbusier in the 1930's. It doesn't really relate to industrialisation at all, which had already been reasonably addressed by Lord Cadbury at Bournville and the Lever Brothers at Port Sunlight. Zoning was pure academia in its concept and failure, we are all still paying the price.
American urban design is related to the industrial revolution in a loose way, but for different reasons. Of course it was all exacerbated by the motor car.
I agree about being more flexible, although the best of Italian cities were still done by mandate. They have had many centuries to try the things that don't work mind you, you would think we would learn rather than make the same mistakes.
I am not so familiar with German Zoning so will look into that. Interesting given they started the modernist movement, perhaps they are also the first to recognise the error of their ways:)
I have pointed out before the work being done in the Mt Wellington District, as well as Kensington Park in Orewa. A step in the right direction.
I did some planning papers in my masters of architecture all those years ago. Zoning started in New York in 1916 well before modernism.
I don't know I think maybe the old world has an inherently more flexible appoach to zoning as the cities of the old world traditionally had quite a lot of mixed use.
A lot of the urban areas of Japan have got a lot of mixed use too. Even the suburban areas where I lived had plenty of "low impact" non-residential use - things like little cafes, florists shops, plant shops etc.
But one size doesn't fit all. As much as I love these mixed use environments the new world cities have totally different histories and cultures, and are cool in different ways. I've seen some "enforced mixed use" in some developments in Australia and its not always pretty - empty shops and tacky neo-victorian design
Actually I should have related my Italian cities comment more to the town squares, rather than the entire city.
I tend to agree about forced, it never seems to work. I think because it is always someones theory at work.
Here is the question for you. Does culture drive the design, or is it a result of it? I certainly think urban design in New Zealand has been detrimental to the development of community, that bad that I choose not to participate in an urban lifestyle. I wonder how far the design issues can be held culpable for a lot of the problems discussed on these forums.
Your professor and mine obviously have different views on the origins of zoning:)
"Christchurch was on its knees in development / construction terms prior to the 4 September event, following what could best be described as the "20 year war" between the massively dysfunctional amalgamated and bureucratized Christchurch City Council and the property / development industry."
that would have coincided with a 21% population increase (1994 to 2004) and the need for ever more infratsructure, plus large increases in capital gains going into the pockets of land owners?
NZ is SOOOO naive about how serious the ChCh earthquake(s) are for our economy. The "hit" to NZ GDP is around 8%. Japan's earthquake and tsunami were a 4% hit to THEIR GDP.
NZ's population and urban economy is far too little "dispersed" for sensible disaster mitigation. Having 1 major city of 1 million and more with another few hundred thousand each, only makes sense if your total population is 20 million plus. There is hardly a nation anywhere in the world with population as "clustered" as NZ, and hardly a nation in the world with such a high proportion of under-utilised land.
The New Orleans disaster, to the USA, was like a disaster in Carterton would have been for NZ. We are kidding ourselves if we think we can rebound from disasters in our major cities "just like any other first world nation would".
excellent thoughts Phil. The impact of this disaster is being underestimated.
One of the thing I find amusing is all those who think somehow the Auckland economy is going to roar ahead in the next couple of years. With diversion of Govt interest and funding to ChCh that simply isn't going to happen
And I think there is some wisdom in Hugh's views on much of the housing "rebuild" work amounting to repairs
Yeap and there will also be the issue that same parts of CHC will struggle to find an insurance company that will touch them, as those areas will be deemed to high a risk.
And another issue that is fast arising..I am getting some work done on my house..pre September we started, and still going thks to mother nature..lucky I got a fix price contract as my builders are now saying it would cost me an extra 35-40 percent now..as Fletchers are paying 45-65 dollars an hour...they are struggling to get sub contractors now to finish the job as all want to do EQC work as the pay is so good.
How can developers be relied on to do the right thing (or that councils won't accept bribes - "it goes on just about everywhere")?
"
As reported on NBR Online last week, mayor Bob Parker was forced to backtrack on claims that developers forced through inappropriate development against city council objections. He told radio, television and newspaper outlets that developers had appealed the matter to the Environment Court in spite of city council objections.
But a perusal of the records shows the city council never objected to any developments over concerns about liquefaction.
The private developers who bought the council land sought rezoning in 1992. The only objectors were environmentalists concerned about the loss of wetlands. The Environment Court acceded to their requests to reduce the area for housing.
The directors of one of the Bexley development companies include high profile South Island names such as Phil Burmester, David Lyall, Phil Cooper and James Wall. At various times they sold on their interests.
Foundation rules unset
At issue in any court case will be the foundation requirements of the council at the time. Early reports suggest that only minimal reinforcing of concrete foundation slabs was required (by contrast, new building in other peat-profile suburbs has required extensive pole foundations underneath concrete slabs and it is unclear why these were not mandatory at Bexley).
Conditions requiring remediation of potential liquefaction sites have been required in more recent years by the regional council, notably at Pegasus Town. Environment Canterbury was unsuccessful in preventing the development of the suburb that is about 20km north of Christchurch.
But it was successful in requiring that the developer, Infinity, use vibrating technology to settle the land as well as extensively building up the soil. Pegasus was unscathed in the earthquake of September 4 and is likely to become a favoured location by the many residents of nearby Kaiapoi where about 300 houses are severely damaged."
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/bexley-residents-may-sue-christchurch-coun…
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