Woods Megan: Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill Riccarton Racecourse Bill — Second ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill Riccarton Racecourse Bill — Second Readings[Sitting date: 01 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11594. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my pleasure to take a call on the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill and the Riccarton Racecourse Bill a piece of legislation that I know started its life as a local bill and is now back in this House as a Government bill. It was a pleasure to be involved in working through this legislation. It of course covers a very important part of Christchurch: the Riccarton Racecourse area being in the Wigram electorate and a part of the city where I have very good connections about what is happening in that community. This is legislation that is changing the Christchurch Racecourse Reserve Act which was put in place in the 19th century in 1878 to establish on the outskirts of the city a racecourse for the city of Christchurch. This was a place that was imagined to last for generations. What we are seeing with this legislation is the continuation of that racing facility to the west of our city situated at Riccarton Park. We can all still go and enjoy the New Zealand Cup there and hopefully have a good flutter.But what is going to change once this legislation is enacted giving the potential for people to be able to develop on that site? I think it is very important to acknowledge that this legislation in no way starts the process of building houses. What this legislation does is make it possible for development to occur on this site—that is the purpose of the legislation. I am reliably told by the trustees of the Riccarton Racecourse that some of those houses will actually be down the long-stretch starters run at Riccarton and they are assuming that for those who are keen on racing that will be some of the most sought-after land in this development.This development has not been without some concerns for locals who live in the area. They were real concerns—concerns that needed to be listened to and concerns that needed to be considered while we went through this legislation. One concern that came through very strongly from constituents and locals in the area was around the lack of transport planning that sits alongside this development. When the idea for this development first came to the fore it was going to be an exemplar project. An exemplar project was a fast-tracked way of doing development in post-quake Christchurch. To qualify as an exemplar development several factors needed to be met. There needed to be a proportion of affordable houses in the development. Although this is not proceeding as an exemplar project I do note that the same number of affordable houses—under the definition of affordable that would have been used in the exemplar project—will still be in place. In an exemplar project there needed to be thought given to the amenity and to the urban design that went into the development and there also needed to be consideration of the infrastructure and transport planning that sat beside the development.As the local member in this area one of the things that I have growing concerns about is that we are not putting adequate transport planning into the west of Christchurch as we expand into that area and the city grows in a westward direction. Anyone who travels along Yaldhurst Road on a regular basis will know that you cannot simply tumble another 600 households into this area and not give serious thought to how we are going to move people around. We have a huge and really exciting opportunity in Christchurch as we are rebuilding and recovering and making our lives again in that city to actually do some stuff that makes us fit for the 21st century—to put in place proper public transport planning as we plan our housing developments and to not just take a 20th century view of how it is that we do development.We have the opportunity to think: “What is the potential for rail from the west of the city that would go through this area?”. I note and the Minister for Building and Housing noted in his speech that when Riccarton Racecourse was first established one of the most important parts of establishing that racecourse was getting a rail siding in place so that you could get the people of Christchurch out to the races in the 19th century. That rail siding is still there. I think it is time that we started thinking in our city about how it is we can be a progressive modern 21st century city that is not burying its head in the sand and looking backwards not forwards. Because that is what is happening with the kind of planning that this Government is putting in place and I think it is a real shame to lose the opportunity to do this kind of transport planning and infrastructural planning to sit alongside it.Another concern—and a valid concern—that residents in the local area had was the way the development would face; that we are seeing far too many subdivisions happen around this country that turn their backs to the road and to the local community where front gardens face inward to the new development rather than outward to existing streets. That was something that we were able to work through in a public meeting with the developers—around whether or not this really would be part of the existing community that has flourished in that part of Riccarton and around the racecourse. There is a real community that lives in this area. The racecourse employs hundreds of people on site and many of them live in this area and have for several generations. It is an important part of their home.For the locals who already live there and who have made their lives and their homes there it was important to them that there was an ability to integrate these new homes and this new development into their neighbourhood. That is something that I as the local member for Wigram am happy to support them on because I think it is important that we are building communities and neighbourhoods as well as houses and homes and that we are building strong and resilient communities as we go through. I would also like to acknowledge the board of trustees of Riccarton Racecourse which was were more than willing to work with the local residents and to talk through concerns that residents had as we went through there.I just now want to turn my attention to some of the comments that the Minister made in his speech. What we heard was the Minister respond to a very innocuous interjection from my colleague Phil Twyford with quite a tirade—a very defensive tirade—about how it is we can look to Christchurch’s progress as a strong direction for Auckland. I have been listening to this kind of nonsense from that Minister and his boss the Prime Minister for days now and this is complete nonsense. What we have is a completely unique and different set of circumstances in Christchurch. We had a natural disaster where in the course of a few days we lost thousands of houses. It was with that loss of houses that we had the coming in of insurance money. Of course it was too slow—that insurance money has not tumbled in at the rate that we would like to have seen—but what we had was the ability to redevelop and rebuild in a way that for the Minister and the Prime Minister to say it was the exemplar for Auckland just sends a chill down my spine.This sounds suspiciously like the kind of softening up that Nick Smith did before he sacked the regional council in Canterbury. He is laying the blame on the Auckland Council rather than accepting blame for a housing crisis that he has created and has failed to address. What he is doing is he is softening up to sack another council and he is unwilling to take the responsibility. He and his boss the Prime Minister have been going around saying: “We can look to what’s happened in Christchurch.” The Prime Minister who can never get a name right talks about how “ECANZ” has been granting consents in the city. The Prime Minister should take note that ECan Environment Canterbury the regional council in Canterbury is not the body that grants building consents. So if the Prime Minister is going to go around and talk about what he wants to see as the model in Auckland as a way to fix it perhaps he could actually get his facts straight. But why should he bother? This is he and Nick Smith softening up to sack yet another democratically elected council because they want to sidestep the blame for their failure in Government to do what they were elected to do.I am happy to support this legislation. Labour is happy to support the Riccarton Racecourse Development Enabling Bill and Riccarton Racecourse Bill but I would like to see the Government keep its rhetoric in check. I would like to see the Government stick to the facts and I would like to see the Government actually talk about and have some concerns for the local communities that it is impacting when we do this kind of legislation. This is not a chance for the Minister to stand up and progress an agenda that he clearly has. This is a chance for him to talk about a particular community in Christchurch in a particular community that is going to be impacted in a particular way. I would like to hear some discussion on that in contributions from subsequent Government speakers. Thank you.