Gerry Brownlee- February 22 | Canterbury Opinion | Local Voices from Canterbury, New Zealand

February 22 2011 changed our lives and our city forever.

Beyond our mourning it gave us a challenge to face as big as that faced by the first European settlers.

The world watched as the people of Canterbury pulled together in the aftermath of the quake, initially just to get through the first calamitous days, and then as communities battled to remove 500,000 tonnes of liquefaction that invaded their lives, repair homes, find places to live, mourn lost loved ones, and worked to bring back some normalcy.

This week gives us time to reflect on lives lost and time to reflect on how the road to recovery is shaping up.

From the very first, we have had a process in place to look at the long term recovery effort, to ensure that we were in the best position to effect the quickest and best rebuild of our communities. The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority - CERA - is the agency that is bringing together all the various threads to the rebuild.

There is no doubt in my mind that we have seen some very solid signs of the recovery.

Eighty per cent of buildings requiring demolition have been demolished, allowing development to begin; projects like the $20 million Latimer Hotel, the Harcourts Grenadier Building, and the $7 million boutique mall in the old Woolston Tannery.

Construction has commenced for 26 significant buildings within the four avenues, demonstrating a belief in the future of the central city by the building's owners, and by the tenants they have secured to occupy the building.

Approx $3B has been paid out to residential property owners.

EQC's Project Management Office, run by Fletchers, has repaired nearly 10,000 homes and has 1000 more in work.

The contracting alliance led by CERA brings together five major civil construction companies and NZTA to ensure a speedy rebuild of roads, sewers, water supply and waste water services. By June of this year the Alliance will be completing $40M of work per month.

Overseas financial institutions have signalled their interest in investing in the rebuild, giving confidence the cost of recovery will be underwritten.

We moved as quickly as possible to ensure residential property owners had certainty about their land and in June 2011 we zoned over 180,000 properties in the greater Christchurch region, mostly green, around 6000 red, and over 10,000 orange and requiring further geotechnical investigations.

Today, only 650 properties remain zoned orange and 2100 zoned white only around 1.5 per cent of the total number of Christchurch properties.

I suggest that this is extraordinary progress given the full seismic event continues to play out.

The owners of nearly half of the 6800 homes in red zones have accepted the Government's settlement offer to buy their homes and over a third of them have already settled on their properties which has enabled them to move on and restart their lives.

And there is land for them to build on. We have used the powers of CERA to free up significant blocks of land for development and purchase.

There is enormous thought and planning being given to the longer term strategies that will shape the future of Canterbury. The Christchurch City Council has produced a CBD Draft Plan which is currently under scrutiny by my officials to ensure it is enabling of those whose capital we need reinvested in the city.

The road ahead won't be easy. There will be a few speed bumps and occasionally we might go down a wrong path to rebuild our great city. But together we will get there.

* Gerry Brownlee is Earthquake Recovery Minister.