The group that has taken the Anglican Church court in an attempt to save ChristChurch Cathedral says the decision to demolish the building is breaches an Act of Parliament.
The Great Christchurch Building Trust is arguing at the High Court in Christchurch the significant national and international interest in the cathedral’s future means it should be subject to judicial review.
Members of the public want to save it at the cost of an estimated $100m .. when the insurance payout was $30 m … without of course offering to pay the difference, or attend church.
I would be surprised if anyone in the diocese wanted to pull down the building — but they are faced with the realities of having to pay for it.
BTW the difference between the payout and the insurance does not necessarily mean the diocese was not appropriately insured (I don’t know either way – so it MAY mean that.) Many people are faced with this difference because the building was insured on the basis of replacing it “as is” so to speak, but the building code has been lifted significantly in the meantime, so to build in line with the new building code is much more expensive than replacing.
To give you an idea, many older buildings are being assess as less than 33% of the new building code (at which level they are deemed earthquake-prone and there has to be a notice warning people entering the building.) All of these buildings would cost a great deal more to rebuild than the cost of replacing them as they are, and generally you can only get insurance for replacement.
Margaret;
As one who has been restoring Historic stone and timber buildings for decades (more decades than I care to admit) and flollowing the events in Chch very closely, let me share some information and back ground.
The cost estimate offered by the Church of $100 million is a grossly inflated price predicated on the assumption that you whould take it completly down and rebuild it in kind. That’s like saying you are going to fix your car by first melting it down …and that might be a bit expensive (wouldn’t a new car be better?) Now, NO war or Quake damaged Church in the world has been restored that way. Instead, you shore it up, gently remove the damaged stuff and get to work re-building and reinforcing. That approach would cost in the 20 – 40 million range as costed by myself and two other well qualified builders.
Kit Miyamoto, a highly regarded Siesmic an Structural engineer has offered to bring in his Italian quake/church experts free of charge. The Bishop has declined. There are offers to finance the rebuild capping the Church’s portion at $15 million. That has been declined.
There is a plan to rebuild the Steeple utilizing time proven Community building approaches to raise the Steeple sections like a telescope expanding…using the muscles and hearts of hundreds of volunteers, barn-raising style. All the skilled labour to prefabricate all those sections has been already offered and pledged, amounting to millions of dollars. (see http://www.thePeoplesSteeple.org) That could have the Bell tower up and the Bells ringing on the third anniversary of the Quake. That offer has not been declined, yet. The Church has only sent a short email acknowledging the reciept of the information a year ago.
If the Insurance pay out was not enough, those of us that want to see the Cathedral saved are glad to step up and shoulder the burden….especially if we can pull together a rational, common sense, time-proven Restoration plan.
Ironically, the information that is coming out in Court is that the Church early on, decided that it wanted a new Cathedral, and this was their opportunity to get one. Now we can read the minutes of the Trustees meetings which confirm what we have long suspected: they gave lip service to investigating the restoration, yet scuttled and undermined the option at every turn.
From long experience in the Building trades…if you want to kill a project, inflate the cost and make it appear as dangerous as possible. This is exactly what has happened.
Now… I hope that the Courts will put this on hold and force folks to deal honestly. I know that there is a good pathway through this mess that will unify the Church and City, Build on the faith, allow us to LIVE the Gospel and grow the Body of Christ. All it takes is to seek the path through the woods, rather than worrying about the trees in the way. If you find the path, the trees are not a problem.
Properly done, the restoration of the Cathedral becomes a teaching, growing moment. It’s NOT a building project, it’s a Ministry outreach project that makes a lot of dust!
With Love,
Marcus
Hi Marcus
I am not close enough to be able to assess the validity of what you are claiming here, but in my experience even if one or two people in an organisation are malevolent, the majority are not. Which leads me to doubt the “they just wanted to pull it down” explanation.
I am close enough to the Presbyterian rebuilds in Christchurch however to know that:
1. The “cheap” fixes that people think are available generally are not. The level of earthquake strengthening required is just too great.
2. The gap between the insurance and the cost of the NBS is just enormous, particularly when the building is in brick or stone. (It is not so bad when they are in wood).
3. The buildings with significant damage (and the photos suggest the Cathedral would be one of these) ha
3. The buildings with significant damage (and the photos suggest the Cathedral would be one of these) have almost always lost structural integrity ie what is left of them cannot just be “fixed up” but does need to be torn down and the structural framework rebuilt.
(Sorry I don’t know how I came to send this in before finishing).
I also know that church buildings inspire a whole lot of strong feelings. I also suspect that if the “community” did put money in (and remember the Council has already refused to fund the Cathedral for even the work they are doing) that it would come with (possibly — or even probably) unpalatable strings attached. After all this whole court case is over WHO can decide what happens to an Anglican building — with the implication that the Anglicans cannot. It is not without the realms of the possible for secular NZ to say “yes we will help you rebuild that cathedral but only if you drop that pesky religious stuff you do in it”. Would money be acceptable on that basis?