Plans to build community housing on Crown owned land in central Christchurch have fallen through – again.

In November 2019, councillors approved a $450,000 loan to the Ōtautahi Urban Guild (OUG) to build the Madras Square village opposite Latimer Square, despite council staff saying it was “unsecure and high risk.”

The guild wanted to build affordable and sustainable homes which would be 10 to 20 per cent cheaper than those built by the private sector, but needed rate-payer money to do it.

City councillors James Daniels, Anne Galloway and Aaron Keown voted against the loan.

The Guild has received one installment of $150,000.

It’s the second development on the site to fall through, after the much hyped “Breathe Village” was ditched.

Breathe was a flagship project started in 2012 by the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority with a design-and-build urban village competition, but was abandoned in 2015.

A Ōtākaro Limited spokesman said Ōtākaro selected the Ōtautahi Urban Guild proposal in December 2018 knowing it was an ambitious plan, and that ambitious property development plans don’t always come to fruition. 

“As the OUG was not able to secure the funding required to complete the purchase of the Madras Street land, Ōtākaro is now considering other options for the divestment of the site that will deliver regenerative benefits for Christchurch.”

He said “given the process with OUG has only recently concluded, it is too early to say when any decisions around the next steps will be made.”

“However, we know demand for investment and development opportunities in the city is currently high so it a good time to be engaging with the market.”

Sustainability and Community Resilience Committee Chair Sara Templeton said at the time of voting for the loan “the initiative aligned with a number of the Council’s strategic priorities for the city – bringing vitality and affordable housing to the central city.

This morning she told Chris Lynch “I still believe that Councillor Gough was right to move the recommendations on the day as Council are focused on getting more people living in our central city and we have also given (not loaned) many millions to ‘regular’ developers by way of development contributions rebate for this purpose.”

“We need to be asking why Ōtakaro has now not provided the right support to the type of developers it wants on the Madras Square site – there seems to be a rigidness and lack of awareness of what is required from them.”

“The loan and the money is not lost to ratepayers – we deliberately loaned money in stages to limit risk and only half the total planned and they still have five years to repay it.”

Councillor James Gough told Chris Lynch if the Council continues with its all too familiar “computer says no” approach then nothing of any note will occur, or if it does, it certainty won’t be thanks to the council.

“We have a goal of having 20,000 residents living within the Central City by 2028. Currently we have closer to 7,000 – still lower than what we had prior to the 2011 earthquake.”

Mr Gough said “I want to see the council enabling others to do positive things in the city and that will require taking a calculated risk at times. The council doesn’t need to do everything itself, in fact I prefer it when it doesn’t. This was a way to pave a path for someone other than council to make a go of an exciting and positive central city initiative for Christchurch. A hand-up, not a hand-out.”