Christchurch

The 2011 earthquake destroyed most of central Christchurch, and handed the city something almost no other place gets: a real chance to plan a centre from scratch. Parts of that chance have been taken. Cathedral Square has new public space, and the anchor projects have brought people back downtown. But too much of the rebuild reached for the fastest, cheapest answer: low glass boxes and steel-and-precast facades that could be anywhere, in any decade. The opportunity to build something as memorable as the city it replaced is still open. It’s just narrowing.

Traditional Rebuild

Current Rebuild

Restore Christ Church Cathedral in full, and require every new building fronting Cathedral Square to build in a traditional idiom: masonry, pitched or domed rooflines, and street-level detail, so the square reads as one composed place again, not a construction timeline.

Full of buildings. Empty of people.

The rebuild was promised as New Zealands most liveable inner city. Instead, block after block of new apartments sit shuttered most of the year, no washing on the line, no bikes on the balconies, streets with almost no foot traffic outside of match days at the new stadium next door.

Christchurchs rebuild happened at almost exactly the moment Airbnb arrived in New Zealand, and the city was primed for a short-stay takeover. Surge pricing around big events, concerts, the Crusaders, is so extreme that an owner can leave a unit empty most nights and still come out ahead chasing four or five nights a year. In the last year alone, 484 new dwellings went up in the inner city. Only 50 new residents actually moved in.

New Dwellings

484

New dwellings built in central Christchurch over the past year alone.

New Residents

50

New residents who actually moved in over the same period, most units sit empty, held for short-stay income.

Same Problem Elsewhere

Not alone

Prague, Barcelona, and a growing list of European centres are fighting the identical short-stay takeover of their historic cores.

Built for Profit

Built for People

None of this is really the developers fault, theyre building exactly what the current incentives reward: short-stay income beats long-term rent, and nothing currently taxes the difference. Its the same pattern behind most of what gets built in this city, decisions made for investor return first, and for the people who might actually live there, a distant second. Its worth watching for across the rest of this site too. This isnt the only place it shows up.

The councillor quoted above says it best on camera. Frank — South Island Stories walks the empty blocks with him in “Are We Building a Ghost Town in Christchurch?”

Give the Council a bed register and a bed tax, so short-stay units are taxed on how theyre actually used, with the revenue funding the infrastructure they lean on. Pair it with zoning power to ring-fence parts of the centre as residents-only, no short-stay accommodation, the same tool already used in cities that have brought vibrancy back to their inner cores.

See the full policy ask →

What this could look like.

Not a construction plan. A picture of what Christchurch could become if the rules changed and the city chose to build with care. Civex does not build anything itself; we make the case.