Over this scene of unease looms the new One New Zealand stadium, projected to generate more than $50 million annually for the local economy. For a few hours on game days, which come around once a week at best, the streets here are pumping. But when the crowd goes home, silence returns. And herein lies the problem.<\/p>\n
Jardine says Christchurch\u2019s rebuild happened at the same time that Airbnb arrived in New Zealand, and the rising city was primed for a short-stay rental takeover. Many of the apartments in the new Christchurch, he says, have been built and marketed with this in mind.<\/p>\n
Apartments in Central Christchurch. Photo \/ Frank Film<\/p>\n
\u201cThe surge pricing on Airbnb and other websites,\u201d he explains, \u201cis so extreme that as long as you hit those big nights \u2013 Robbie Williams, Six60 and the Crusaders \u2013 you can just leave it empty the rest of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
One statistic says it all \u2013 484 new dwellings have been built in the inner city in the last year, but only 50 people have moved into the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the ones that are being built now aren\u2019t even really studio apartments,\u201d says Jardine. \u201cThey just have a bed that falls down over the couch.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Frank Film visits this desolate dormitory town, there are few people about, but producer Gerard Smyth manages to find a couple of permanent residents, who seem somewhat bemused by where they\u2019ve found themselves living.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to live in a community, and a neighbourhood with permanent residents,\u201d says Bernard.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou sort of give up talking to people,\u201d says Dale, \u201cbecause you\u2019re going, \u2019Oh, this is a new neighbour, but it\u2019s not. It\u2019s someone who\u2019s here for 24 hours or 48 hours\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Green space in the newly built Christchurch. Photo \/ Frank Film<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not necessarily the developers\u2019 fault, says Jardine. \u201cThey\u2019re just doing what the market tells them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The blame, he says, lies with the Central Government, which has allowed this situation to unfold without giving city councils the necessary tools to override the process.<\/p>\n
Jardine is asking for a bed register and a bed tax, so that property owners can be taxed correctly based on the use of the dwelling, and for that money to be made available to support local infrastructure. The council, he says, has been seeking this for a decade now.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also asking for more power in zoning, so that \u201cas a council, we can actually say, \u2018This area is for residents. We are not going to have any short-stay accommodation in this area.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
This approach, he says, has been taken in other cities around the world, and \u201cit brings vibrancy back to the inner city\u201d.<\/p>\n
Townhouses in Central Christchurch. Photo \/ Frank Film<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not too late, says Jardine, to save Central Christchurch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can have this amazing, thriving inner city if we just change the incentives. There is still so much land in Christchurch where we can build medium-sized, two-three bedroom homes, where families can live.\u201d<\/p>\n
Existing apartments, he says, can be used to home single people and students.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still have a real chance to make this city work if we do something about it now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over this scene of unease looms the new One New Zealand stadium, projected to generate more than $50…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[17525,192,674,1853,4487,2199,156,21039,593,36341,12130,2514,13840,124559,663,111,139,69,1240,6182,8475,67015,3270,6923],"class_list":["post-560079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-17525","tag-are","tag-building","tag-central","tag-christchurch","tag-city","tag-entertainment","tag-episode","tag-film","tag-frank","tag-inner","tag-island","tag-like","tag-liveable","tag-looks","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-south","tag-stories","tag-thats","tag-thriving","tag-we","tag-what"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}