Stadium hotel is a befuddling concept
Maybe Dunedin's ratepayers have every reason to thank whoever leaked details of yet another ill-conceived scheme designed to salvage something from the debacle of what once was hailed by some, as "our glorious stadium".
Could someone please explain for the benefit of my age-befuddled brain what this hotel exercise is hoped to achieve? What exactly is its function?
Surely not accommodation for out-of-towners predicted to visit the city for stadium events, when it becomes more obvious by the day that anything worth attending will draw the line at Christchurch with its massive raft of advantages in terms of accessibility, bums-on-seats etc.
Mass entertainment in this era is a hard-nosed business, not a charity.
As a stand-alone project, in the face of the weather likely to be experienced in such a dire harbour-side location, with its exposure to the notorious nor-easter for much of the year, this scheme would seem to be as ill-conceived and badly considered as its two harbourside predecessors, in respect of which, thankfully, timely commonsense prevailed before the damage could be done.
The stadium sits, not entirely comfortably, on reclaimed land due to its generous footprint spreading the unit loading of its mass, as do several other sizable buildings.
To propose a multi-storey hotel such as the one under consideration, on a much smaller footprint with its much higher unit loading, would call for, at the very least, a substantial base of basalt, likely to be in the area due to the one-time volcanic Lake Logan.
I can see no advantage in adding yet another costly lame duck burden to that already being borne by our city's ratepayers.
[Abridged: length].
Full power
It is great news to hear Timaru is now 100% electric buses. With the current battery technology one charge (overnight) keeps them going all day.
We hope our council candidates have taken note.
Dunedin could start on the flat routes and gradually extend into the hill suburbs.
Chickening out
Shane Jones said (16.4.26): "No one should ever doubt the force of my rhetoric".
So why did he withdraw from his debate with Sir Ian Taylor? Is it yet another example of JACO — Jones Always Chickens Out?
Correcting a correction
AndrewLim's correction of Dave Tackney's recent letter (18.4.26) requires some correction of its own.
To refer to Israel's reaction to the October 7 butchery as "disproportionate", is to reduce one of history's most depraved acts to the status of "just another Mideast troublespot".
Mr Lim should also be aware that Iran's attempt to nationalise its oil industry involved the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company — not the Americans. The incoming Eisenhower government was rightly concerned that nationalisation fervour could bleed over to their concessions in Saudi.
The British were entitled to be upset, as the Iranian stance on reparations was that this was to be limited to the book-value of the plant. That is, with no recognition of the oil revenues accruing if the British company had been valued as a going concern.
Reading the numbers but missing the concepts
Christopher Luxon is a bookkeeper: he can read numbers and recognise growth, but fails to understand growth is a consequence not a plan of action — the result of building on ideas.
Terminating the ferry contract because it meant building new terminals shows he has none: now we will pay more for less.
Allowing electricity prices to bankrupt factories, farmers to win on utes and ute tax, cutting BEV subsidies, cancelling Lake Onslow pumped hydro while insisting electricity consumers buy the gas industry a billion-dollar LNG terminal shows he doesn't understand the world.
People sense this: "He's out of touch". Gifting landlords money he didn't have showed the man could not think straight from the start.
Luxon thinks in numbers and not concepts and doesn't see that markets decide only profit — not the best way to allocate Earth's and human resources.
Saw-millers and civil servants losing jobs don't become neurosurgeons. Floods of migrants make poor people poorer: resources are diluted and infrastructure creaks.
John Key fooled people for a while with his rock star economy, but it was really just bull dust.
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