Shocked and dismayed as 284 meets its end
Like many others, I am shocked and dismayed that the prominent early home at 284 Stuart St should be reduced to a pile of rubble.
Not a hair seems to have been ruffled by either the Dunedin City Council or Heritage NZ.
Has the proverbial penny not dropped that for some years now Dunedin has the reputation as the heritage capital of New Zealand; that visitors come here, enticed by the promise of seeing and photographing our fine buildings and early homes; that on cruise ship days hundreds of visitors can be seen photographing them?
Obviously not, when a group of businessmen can swoop into the city to demolish one of Dunedin's most notable houses, within a block of the city centre and standing in its original once picturesque garden. And all to build a cheap block of flats. Does nobody care?
I do, as do countless others who live and work in the city and proud of the heritage we have in our midst. It cannot be replaced.
As for 284 Stuart St, its day in the sun is over. Shame on those who sat by and let it happen.
Preserve heritage
How sad it is to see the beautiful Haynes House at 284 Stuart St being systematically destroyed. Designed by architect Edmund Anscombe this was a distinguished landmark building on a prominent site.
It is ironic it is being removed by the Elim Group, an organisation noted for its preservation of genealogy records. Meanwhile other eyesores blot the cityscape, notably the Arkwright Building which is an utter disgrace.
When will the Dunedin City Council get some teeth to remove these dangerous and neglected buildings and fight to preserve the heritage buildings?
Propaganda unwelcome
It was disappointing to see a propaganda piece (Opinion 27.2.26) by ex-Act representative Gerrard Eckhoff given exposure by the ODT.
His article is full of misrepresentation, conjecture, and unsupported opinion. The stream of consciousness ramblings reflected what one of my brothers calls "binge thinking", the attempt at thinking through complex matters by those unused to the process. His conflation of what are effectively Centre Right parties (Labour and the US Democrats) as left-wing was laughable.
It is a tactic of misrepresentation, and misdirection which appears to have been adopted from the US Republican Party.
A question that often enters my mind when I hear the fact-free ravings of the political parties of the NZ "right" is "how stupid do you think we are."
What lessons?
The Weekend Mix (21.2.26) contained an article by Scott Willis, Green Party MP, on Choosing a resilient future. He claims that he has heard repeatedly from around the country that the lessons learned from the South Dunedin Futures programme are being used everywhere.
We of the South Dunedin Stormwater Justice Group and the Surrey St Flood Water Action Group, having read the Futures documents very carefully, would like to know what these amazing lessons are?
His broad statement that Taieri home owners are being refused insurance is a rather exaggerated statement. One company, Tower, refused some residents insurance and that is in dispute as many flooding incidents were caused by stormwater drains overflowing into basements. We sympathise with the owners.
Shifting global tides should be reflected in policy
Recent international developments suggest that the global environment is shifting rapidly.
In the United States, courts have moved to constrain use of executive authority in trade policy, raising questions about the durability of decisions on which allies and trading partners relied. Meanwhile, European governments are signalling a greater willingness to diversify defence and supply arrangements, including closer engagement with countries such as Canada.
These developments point to a broader change: long-standing assumptions about the reliability of established partnerships are increasingly, being reassessed.
For New Zealand, the risks of a less predictable world are clear. But there may also be opportunities.
Over many years, our defence and procurement decisions have closely aligned us with the US systems and supply chains.
That creates a degree of structural dependence which, in an increasingly unpredictable environment, may warrant closer examination.
As larger states diversify their relationships, smaller countries may have greater scope to do the same.
Strategic independence is not without cost, but in a changing world the cost of dependence may prove higher still. Those shifts will be noted elsewhere. They should be noted here – and reflected in policy.
Dancing, singing
The "Tears of joy" of your celebratory headline (2.3.26) seem a little forced. And they are rather premature, are they not? But when those presiding in Washington DC and Tel Aviv respectively are finally brought down there will be real and prolonged singing and dancing worldwide.
Pay for a week, owe a fortnight
A decade or so ago, I had been opposed to the stadium to an extent that I had been regarded, even by some friends, as "anti-everything".
I reluctantly pulled my head in and grudgingly accepted the fact that it was a fait accompli. But that had been on a premise that the city, through our council, would make a conscientious effort to whittle down in the timely manner promised, the resulting burden of debt to, at least, manageable proportions, due to the interest to be paid on borrowings at the expense of enterprises which could have moved our city forward more meaningfully.
Reading the item in the ODT (2.3.26), I am left with the impression that no such effort has been made.
The subsequent election of a new mayor, the late Dave Cull, had been based upon a promise that, with the stadium now an accomplished fact, profligate spending on projects which had never had a hope-in-hell of paying their way, would henceforth cease.
A new buzz-word, "vibrancy" had been bandied about. Vibrancy, I think, would be a word rather hard to define, as it could mean many things, to many people. But I look at council spending since, and have to wonder sadly, as I look at the prospects of my next year’s quarterly rates bills soaring beyond the $1000 they are now,
where all this ratepayers as cash-cows culture is going to take us.
How desperately, really, was the notorious see-saw in George St needed, or a ping-pong table in Queen’s Dr, when after heavy rain, Surrey St still becomes "Slurry St"?
Our family has a saying inherited from our much loved and respected great grandmother who had hailed from the poorest part of southern Ireland and had lived, but without envy, on the margins of more affluent society all her life: "If you can’t pay a week, you can’t pay a fortnight".
Of course, she had never stood for our city council, but I rather wish she had done. She might have talked some sense into the rest of them.
[Abridged — length. Editor.]
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: letters@odt.co.nz
