The other night I was asked by somebody who had been at the meeting with Megan Woods “what is the Global Settlement?”
I have been so deeply engrossed in the document I just made an assumption. That everybody had read it. Silly me. It is a 59-page document which is about as exciting as watching paint dry. So, I thought I would produce a Global Settlement 101.
Firstly, remember that CCC negotiators had a legal opinion which said that this exercise is of “medium” significance. That meant that they did not need to consult widely on the elements within the document. In my opinion, if the items below are not of major significance then……
Global Settlement 101:
- Bus Exchange:
CCC will purchase the Bus Exchange for $22.9m. There are a whole lot of escape clauses as well, but this is the essence of the price. There is a 10% retention if the Crown does not complete work by 30 September 2019.
- Performing Arts Precinct:
This is the block between Colombo Street, Armagh Street, New Regent Street and Gloucester Street. CCC will pay $1 per annum for this land which will be on a 999-year lease. (I don’t think even Ngai Tahu would be prepared to wait around for this to conclude…) The Crown will pay CCC $3m for cleaning up the site. If any of the site is sold then the Crown and CCC share the profit 50:50.
The original land was as defined above, however there’s still some outstanding land to be resolved.
There is a licence to occupy for The Crown Plaza and the Piano.
Residential Red Zone land:
The title passes for this land to CCC for $1. CCC will be responsible for maintenance for the Otakaro Avon River Corridor (OARC) from 1 July 2020 (I’m still not convinced that CCC have got the correct figure for the cost of managing this land, despite assurances). CCC will be responsible for Port Hills maintenance from 31 May 2021, and South Shore and Brooklands from 1 July 2020.
The Crown and CCC will form a “Working Group” to establish plans for the OARC area.
(There’re bits of this section which are redacted (blocked out) so I’m not sure what was in these areas. There’s lots of pages in this section and I may have missed some fine points of the agreement out, but people will let me know what I have missed.)
- Central City Land:
Otakaro will advise CCC what land they have in the Central City and CCC have 20 days to notify Otakaro Ltd that they could be interested in it. (This worries me as that isn’t a long time to make a decision and to consider what possibilities there are for the land. If I were on the Council, I’d put the City’s name on the lot, which would give them time to make sensible plans).
- Margaret Mahy Playground:
CCC will purchase this site for $6.6m.
- Avon River Precinct:
CCC will pay $6.4m for this area.
- Cathedral Square:
The Crown will pay CCC $4.6m towards the regeneration of the Square.
- Port Hills:
CCC will pay the Crown $40.5m for the Port Hills properties.
- Metro Sports Facility:
There is no mention of costs with this project, so I assume that the Crown will pick up the entire construction cost. The facility on completion will transfer to CCC and it will be maintained by the Council in future. (It is strange that one agency, Otakaro, is project managing this facility and CCC have to sit alongside without control. It’s a bit like your neighbour having control of your new house build, and you having no say)
- Te Pae:
This is the polite name for the white elephant, also known as the Convention Centre. There has been much fuss made of “CCC hasn’t ended up with this”, but there is a clause which states:
The parties may continue to engage on future ownership of Te Pae as appropriate. (That means, we’ll be back folks, and you will have no negotiating rights.)
- Decontamination:
The Crown will pay up to $13m for contamination on any of the sites handed over, this includes the $3m mentioned earlier under the Performing Arts Precinct. There is no evidence of how this figure was arrived at.
- Regenerate Christchurch:
This organisation will wind up by 30 June 2020.
(I’m not sure whether CCC put any effort into challenging when DPMC or Otakaro Ltd will leave town. It should be the same date as Regenerate ceases to exist. I’m not sure whether I heard it correctly or not, but I think the Minister said at the Tuesday Club last week that that is when they would cease functioning in the City, however, I might have heard something I wanted to hear rather than what she actually said!).
- Implementation Governance:
The Crown will have one member, and the CCC will also have a member as a Governance Committee. Representatives of Otakaro, LINZ and DCL can be invited if required. I trust this is handled carefully as this could be an incredibly powerful body and our elected reps should think carefully about who should be on it.
- Crown additional Funding:
The Crown has agreed to fund an additional $300m towards the rebuild of Christchurch.
- Crown contribution to Christchurch:
In the Background portion of the document clause “k” it states:
“the Crown has spent $14b (with an additional $3b expected to be incurred)”
(This figure has been totally discredited in the last Tuesday Club notes. I have noted above that Cam Preston and Megan Woods were incredibly polite to each other last Tuesday night, and Megan put very little effort into defending this figure. My comment is that if something as fundamental as this is wrong what else is incorrect?)
14 Horizontal Infrastructure:
The document in Clause “l” states:
“The Council acknowledges that the Crown will provide no further direct funding towards the Council’s land drainage costs….”.
In the documents sent by the Tuesday Club to the Council as the meeting proceeded last Thursday, we showed that CCC had in its files a legal opinion which stated that the supposed agreement to stop the costs at $1.8b by the previous Government was not legal. An amendment was passed at the Council which stated that CCC did not accept this clause.
Here is the legal opinion and the document produced by Rod Cameron.
Here also is a document which was produced by Deloittes which demonstrate that the figure needed for the restoration of our Horizontal Infrastructure is
(This matter needs to be carefully considered during the election campaign, especially as one of the Mayoral candidates is promising no rates increases. If this is the sort of money it will cost to restore our services, and our negotiators failed to raise this matter, who is going to pay for them? What is more important, a Stadium for the Rugby Union, or our roads, sewer and water services?)
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