New Brighton Residents Association acting chair Brian Donovan says enough is enough - it’s time for landlords to clean up their vacant buildings.
Donovan said the association has been approached by many residents over the past few years with complaints of large potholes in car parks and debris flying off roofs of old vacant buildings.
“People just continue to be frustrated. It’s been a festering sore, I guess you could say.”
Donovan said he has contacted the landlords to tell them about vandalism and safety issues with the buildings, but said they tend not to answer his calls now.
“They don’t seem to be interested in doing anything, not even tidying up their buildings,” he said.
The owner of the old SaveMart building said he has plans to incorporate development with the Oram Ave extension plan and is having discussions with Christchurch City Council about this now.
The plan, which was approved in 2016, would see Oram Ave extended to Hawke St to revitalise the suburb.
“I was down there last week ... It’s in the preliminary stages at this point, but we do intend to develop that section,” the owner said.
The owner said he expects to see some progress on development when the “world becomes a bit more normal” again.
City council head of sustainable city growth and property Bruce Rendall said the city council purchased the old Westpac building, adjoining the old SaveMart building, last year as part of a long-term plan for the Oram Ave extension.
Rendall said the city council is having ongoing discussions with the old SaveMart building owner about this planned development.
He also said an elderly woman had fallen over in the car park area on Hawke St, trying to navigate her way around the potholes.
“It’s absolutely shocking, I have no idea how they’ve gotten away with that, from a health and safety point of view it’s just dangerous.”
The rating scheme, approved by the city council in June, sees owners of empty central city blocks pay more than four times the standard general rate, but only if there is no active or consented use being made of the land.
“It’s really important that we don’t forget we have the same issues in suburban areas,” she said.
“We need to use the same policy letters to encourage the right kinds of development in areas such as New Brighton that might have suffered from a long history of land banking too.”
She said the scheme is about encouraging developers and people that own the properties to “do the right thing”.
“If you don’t want to sell, you develop; if you don’t want to develop, you sell. You know, it seems like the simple equation to me.”
He said the future of New Brighton “depends” on these landlords to make a difference after “years and years” of these buildings sitting vacant.
“They either play ball or just get out and if they don’t get out and we have to somehow find the matters to force them out, that’s the situation where it’s got to.”