Brownlee Gerry: Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrownlee Gerry: Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7513. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery): I move That the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Local Government and Environment Committee to consider the bill and at the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 25 February 2016.When we passed the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act in 2011 we were responding to a national disaster with significant losses of life and massive damage to houses commercial buildings infrastructure and other property. The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act provided wide-ranging although not absolute powers to ensure a swift response to recovery barriers and issues. But almost 5 years on it is time for this form of extraordinary legislation to be replaced. We are moving on from emergency and recovery to a time of regeneration. This is an exciting time. Much of the groundwork has been laid and many significant building projects both public and private are under way or have been completed but there is still much to be done.Regeneration of a city and its people’s well-being is a mission that cannot be completed in a short number of years. Legislation therefore is still required to ensure a continuum of planning and land use provisions that support the regeneration of Christchurch and its surrounds beyond the narrow constraints of earthquake recovery.It is essential that the momentum generated in the last 5 years is continued with local leadership resuming the role of shaping our region. The draft transition recovery plan was released on 2 July for public submissions which were taken into account in the development of the final recovery plan released last week. There were two strong themes running through those submissions and I received those submissions with the desire to put them into the legislative proposals that are seen not only in the draft transition recovery plan but also in this bill. The need for a shift to local leadership and Christchurch institutions in the next phase of Greater Christchurch’s regeneration was a central theme to that.I am delighted to report to the House that discussions between the Government and the Christchurch City Council and other councils involved have been extremely positive. At the beginning of this year I established an advisory board to give us advice about what we needed to consider in transition from a heavy role played by the Government to that role being assumed by local government. That board was led by Dame Jenny Shipley. The board consisted of 12 members who were all leaders from local government Ngāi Tahu and the community and business sectors. They worked extremely well and produced very good advice for me which was able to form the basis for that constructive dialogue particularly with Christchurch City Council.The report of the board made a number of recommendations for new legislation most of which we have been able to adopt in the bill before the House today. There is consensus that the step change needed is to deliver regeneration not just to fix what was broken. It is also becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between actions that have a recovery purpose and those with a wider purpose. For the purpose of this bill it is the regeneration of Greater Christchurch that is to the fore. This is defined as restoration enhancement urban renewal and development. No authority should read any constraint into the bill by tying the provisions of this bill to earthquake recovery. This is deliberately quite different from the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act which places a strong emphasis on recovery in its purposes. The bill must be interpreted as enabling regeneration and development that is not limited to recovery or building back just what we had before.In a similar vein Regenerate Christchurch will be squarely focused on regeneration and not limited to earthquake recovery. This bill establishes Regenerate Christchurch as an urban development authority to guide the regeneration of the city. It is an independent body that will provide independent advice. It will have a mandate to get on with the task jointly granted by the Crown and the Christchurch City Council. It will be run by a board of appointees made by both the Crown and the Christchurch City Council with a mix of commercial and strategic skills. The board will also have a representative of Ngāi Tahu and that person will be appointed in conjunction or in discussion with Ngāi Tahu the Government and the council. Its scope will include central Christchurch the Christchurch residential red zones and the New Brighton area. Other potential regeneration areas may be added to the schedules in the future.After 5 years Regenerate Christchurch will have become a fully council-controlled organisation reflecting the ongoing transition to local institutions over those years. The bill contains a regime that allows the development of regeneration plans that make broad changes to planning and land use rules along with the power to directly change plans and by-laws by public notice. Local leadership will have considerable input into the development of regeneration plans. It is my view that the regeneration plans will be almost exclusively promoted by local interests. Local authorities Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and Regenerate Christchurch can all propose regeneration plans and lead and consult on their drafting.The new approach will ensure that these powers are exercised in a way that reflects locally driven objectives. These powers will however continue to ultimately vest in the Minister. This I know will cause some degree of concern but I have discussed this extensively with the Mayor of Christchurch and with the advisory board and it is an agreed position that it is the best thing to do given the nature and significance of the powers that are granted under this Act. The bill also contains provisions that are intended to clarify the relationship between regeneration plans the exercise of powers under the bill and the powers available to the chief executive or Minister outside the bill.The scope of powers in this bill should not limit or circumscribe the powers that are otherwise available to the Government nor constrain the common law power of elected central government to make decisions. The decision of the Supreme Court in the Quake Outcasts v Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery invited this clarification and these clauses make it beyond doubt and should be seen as removing any cloud that may influence the thought coming from the bench. The bill contains a number of powers relating to land such as the power to acquire and dispose of land and to undertake work such as the demolition of buildings. These powers are necessary to support the regeneration of Christchurch.The geographic scope of the bill is broadly consistent with the boundaries of the urban development strategy agreed by the affected local government councils—the Christchurch City Council the Waimakariri District Council the Selwyn District Council and Environment Canterbury.The bill will have a sunset clause and will expire on 30 June 2021. This is effectively the ultimate check. It will ensure that after this period any further bespoke powers will require consideration once again by Parliament. It is my hope that the Government of the day will receive from the strategic partners an advocacy for the flexibility provided in this bill to continue beyond 2021 as Canterbury further develops as a dynamic place to do business to work prosperously and to live well.The process leading to today has been I think a very very constructive one. I have very much appreciated the way in which the local authorities have worked with the Government: firstly stating clearly the needs that they see they would have going forward from this point but also recognising that the landscape changed—literally figuratively and significantly—after the 2011 event and that now is the time for the entire Greater Christchurch area including the Waimakariri and Selwyn districts to regenerate themselves. This bill gives them the tools to do that. I commend the bill to the House.