The Recovery Plan's history

It has only been possible to complete the Christchurch Central Recovery Plan through the contributions of many people:

  • the Christchurch City Council produced the first draft
  • the Blueprint Consortium produced a blueprint with specific details for the layout of the central city
  • the Christchurch Central Development Unit (CCDU) produced the final draft
  • many people and organisations in greater Christchurch contributed their ideas throughout the process.

How was the plan developed?

The Christchurch City Council was given responsibility to develop a draft recovery plan for the central city. It began by working with:

  • the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA)
  • Environment Canterbury
  • Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu
  • Te Ngai Tuahuriri Runanga Mahaanui Kurataiao Ltd
  • the wider Christchurch community, who provided more than 100,000 ideas in the ‘Share an Idea’ campaign.

The initial draft document was released in August 2011. Nearly 3000 people then made comments during the ‘Tell Us What You Think’ process.

The Christchurch Central Recovery Plan is a statutory document that must have the approval of the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery. The revised ‘draft Central City Plan’ was presented to the Minister in December 2011 and was publicly notified. The public were invited to make written comments to the Minister by 3 February 2012.

On receiving the comments, the Minister asked CERA to work on the document further. The Christchurch Central Development Unit was established within CERA to provide clearer leadership for the rebuild of the central city. Its first task was to prepare a final draft Christchurch Central Recovery Plan, including a blueprint plan.

How was the Blueprint developed?

A professional group worked with CCDU to produce the Blueprint in 100 days. Key goals for the Blueprint were to:

  • identify anchor projects based on those in the Christchurch City Council's draft
  • locate those anchor projects considering relationships between them
  • provide black plan guidelines for areas surround anchor projects including precincts

This team has also worked with planning and design professionals from Te Awheawhe Ru Whenua, Ngai Tahu historians and the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. Their focus was on how to make a Ngai Tahu narrative continue to be part of the Christchurch rebuild.

The Blueprint Report was provided to the Director of CCDU and material from it, including the Blueprint Plan, were incorporated into the revised Recovery Plan.

After the Minister considered the finalised Christchurch Central Recovery Plan, the final Recovery Plan was given effect, by a Gazette notice, on 31 July 2012.