The Libs get it right here

What I’m talking about is making Christchurch an Enterprise Zone instead of a ward of the state.

• Christchurch must attract resources. Grant Christchurch a complete 3-year tax-free status, to be extended at discretion. Do this and the problem of attracting resources will disappear. The object is to change our view away from a coercive patch job to a freewheeling environment of entrepreneurial opportunity.
• Christchurch must have thousands of new and rebuilt homes. Our government should make immediate steps to remove the bureaucratic hurdles that have stifled growth and rebuilding, and made building affordable houses completely unaffordable. This includes the existing regulatory system of permits and inspections.
  Let those who own their own property determine between them and their insurance company what they wish their building standards to be. Such a system can be set up very quickly as it already exists in reports.
  Building is productive. Letting things lie idle while waiting for permission from people who have no genuine interest is not.
• Cantabrians don’t needs the grey ones breathing down their backs. Make Christchurch an ETS and RMA free zone. (HELL YES!!!!)
• Cantabrians don’t need to be told where and how they will rebuild their city—they don’t need another centrally-planed “worker’s paradise.” Bus town planners out of Christchurch permanently and allow the city to reinvent itself spontaneously. This would be a wonder to see.
• Cantabrians don’t need barriers to employment. Remove the minimum wage. In a situation like Christchurch’s it is better to be earning something than nothing at all. And it is better to be achieving something with the diminished resources available than achieving nothing at all.
  We must trust that consenting adults can come to their own voluntary financial agreements.

(Above from Not PC)

I agree- I would like to see a new, better downtown Christchurch. With the roads up, fibre can be laid and a tramway put in for a far lower cost than would otherwise be possible. Make the center of town into an IT center, an attractive place to work with a revitalized restaurant and bar district (which was already impressive) and the niche and boutique shops that made the central city. Work on the best of Christchurch- more open areas, attractive architecture (the old can be copied while being earthquake resistant) and all that attracts visitors- and monied professionals!

New, attractive town houses were already replacing the old brick and timber rat-hole houses and I see no reason for this to go backwards.

Build it and they will come!