Council approves Suburban Centres Programme

Christchurch City Council has approved a programme to rebuild quake-affected suburban shopping centres.

A programme of work has been approved to support the recovery and rebuild of up to sixty suburban centres through assisting with planning, design and transport initiatives.

The Suburban Centres Programme will feature two streams of work; one stream will see the development of ‘master plans’ for some of the worst affected shopping centres, and the other stream will see the appointment of ‘case managers’ to other affected centres that may require assistance with planning their rebuild.

Community boards met in May to discuss which centres would be suitable for a master plan and which would benefit for a case management approach, with the vast majority of centres in the case management workstream.

Lyttelton and Sydenham are the first two suburban centres to have begun the rebuild process with a series of community, building and business sector workshops aimed at
producing a draft master plan. The commercial areas centred around the shopping centre on the corner of Worcester and Stanmore streets (Stanmore shops) and Selwyn shops (at the intersection of Selwyn and Rosewarne streets) have also been identified as requiring a master plan approach.

An additional master plan will be developed for Ferry Road / Main Road corridor, a vital arterial that connects the city to the sea.

Other centres are in contention for master plans, however, further investigation is required to help determine the exact scope of works. In the meantime these areas will be case managed.

Mayor Bob Parker applauded Sumner’s community-led master planning approach already initiated by Sumner residents, building and business owners. Council will support, rather than lead this initiative as the process was well on the way to achieving results.

“Involvement from the community in the planning for a rebuild will ensure a robust process with good outcomes, and is an important step toward building investor and community confidence back into these areas,” says Mr Parker.