Rapidly escalating costs may hit if Christchurch does not speed up demolition in the central city, a visiting international expert in disaster recovery says.
Architecture for Humanity founder Cameron Sinclair is calling for a leader with a "gentle iron fist" to get things moving.
Mr Sinclair has led nine reconstruction processes over the past 10 years, each taking three to five years.
"The one thing in common is that the cost of reconstruction is exponential," he said.
"The longer you wait the more it's going to cost you."
It was critical to get the reconstruction phase started quickly, said Mr Sinclair, whose organisation provides low cost architectural solutions to humanitarian crises and design services to communities in need.
Alongside the local construction boom that will occur in Christchurch, there will inevitably be a shortage of materials and labour.
"The cost of materials is going to escalate - so in all of New Zealand there is going to be temporary, or some times permanent, escalation of costs."
Mr Sinclair said similar comments he made in May were misconstrued as criticism of how hard people were working.
"I was suggesting if you went to a seven-day week with rolling teams coming in on four-day shifts, you could expedite the demolition process and go to a much smoother reconstruction phase."
He would also like to see a more staged approach.
"If an area gets done, let's get the planning and the review process going.
"Reconstruction takes a long time because there are so many stakeholders you have to deal with.
"At the moment, we have endless discussion with the community knowing we can't do anything until the demolition is done. So you have a community waiting and waiting."
Based on the organisation's experience, including rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti earthquake and building with the United Nations in Sri Lanka, Mr Sinclair said leadership was key.
"There has to be someone who has a gentle iron fist - a charismatic leader who understands the will of the people, someone with vision thinking about the future of Christchurch and who is willing to be the bad guy when it comes to getting it done."
During reconstruction somebody was always vilified for "just doing the tough stuff and then, once it's done, they are pretty much a hero."
Crucial to the rebuild was lining up big business.
"Right now, if I was the mayor of Christchurch, I'd be going round and poaching businesses - offering incentives, rates holidays, whatever it takes to get strong anchor tenants in the city."
