I Know Nothing!

But when my Google Alert sent this through I do get a knot in my stomach

Shell has announced it is taking over control of further exploration in the Great South Basin, saying there are good signs of viable quantities of natural gas.

Austrian company OMV, which headed the joint venture exploring the basin, carried out a 3-D seismic survey of 4820 km2 of promising areas of sea floor this summer.

The survey, using the state-of-the-art mapping vessel Polarcus Alima, was completed ahead of schedule because of better than expected weather.

The basin lies off the south-eastern coast of Southland and Otago.

Shell NZ chairman Rob Jager said more high-quality data than expected was collected.

Under the joint-venture agreement, Shell will now take charge of development of the basin and will decide how to proceed.

However, Mr Jager said any decision to drill an exploration well would be taken later.

Shell joined the OMV joint venture in August last year, taking a 50 per cent stake

I have no idea on the impact on the environment etc but whenever I see comments about big business in the area I am reminded of the petition and it’s intention to future proof  Bluff from inappropriate expansion on the main street.

NB: The ‘tips’ at the bottom of my Google Alerts are teaching me SOOOO much about search engine tricks!

Great Work Dave!

Due to the Riverton letter to the editor and some research I’ve been doing, I re-read Dave Henigan’s presentation to the community board on 19 September 2011.

Well said, well researched and right on the nose and I don’t think I did him justice at the time.  Bloody good show!

That Sounds Familar

Today’s letter to the editor from a group of Riverton residents reinforces what the Rezone Gore Street petition was all about!

Heads out of the sand please people.

Ravensdown Bluff

It seems whenever Ravensdown are shipping the searches for ‘Ravensdown Bluff’ (and variations) increase.  Can’t say I give much of a shit, I’ve said my piece, I’ve told the powers that be and it really is up to them.  No use harping on about the same old crap (or urine in this case).

I’m told they shipped into the top shed (events centre) all night.  I don’t know which door they were using, front or back but it does raise some relevant points.

• If they are shipping through the front, what measures are there in place to prevent tracking of product?  Through the back they drive over dunnite which should remove product from the tyres.  The Shaw Savill building has a wheel wash but what is there on the front door of the events centre?
• If they shipped through the back all night, residents of the flats may have ended up sleeping in their cars elsewhere again (or just not slept) and it means Ravensdown have given the ‘gentleman’s agreement’ with the Board the finger.
• If they have given the Board the finger, it is deserved because the Board can do all the deals they want, THE CURRENT ZONING ALLOWS IT!
• All it reiterates is the need to REZONE GORE STREET.  Ravensdown have pre-existing rights (hence it was NEVER about Ravensdown) but any other ‘industry’ could come and do as they please and impact residents and we will have no recourse.

I will make a few comments though in support of Ravensdown.  The mess hasn’t been as bad of late and the trucks do all seem to have their covers on.  I also understand why they are using here.  It’s cheap, zoning allows it, the powers that be basically ignore Bluff and increasing fuels costs mean they don’t have far to travel and they can turn around more loads in less time.  That all reiterates the need to rezone.  What if Ballance decide to have storage in Bluff to reduce transportation costs and turn around times?

The Board has been told the Club Hotel is up for sale.  Mayor Tim has been talking about the impact of new earthquake requirements for buildings from central government in light of Christchurch.  I’ve pointed out that the Club is not listed on the Historic Places Trust.  If you’re like me you can see the problem.  Central government standards could make the Club too expensive to remain and demolition will be required and not being historic nothing can be done to prevent it.  Anyone looking at purchasing the site will see it as cheap bare land in an enterprise zone close to a port.

If you think council will protect us through the resource consent process, you’re deluded because enterprise zoning is very permissive and they may choose not to notify the resource consent.  Short term thinking from the board by not supporting the rezoning.  Council in the draft LTP again point out the port is vital and we are a port town.  The port is vital to SOUTHLAND and Bluff is a COASTAL town that has a port (Island Harbour).  We are also a fishing village with tourist attractions but who gives a shit, not council or the board.

Don’t have time for links to the evidence, I would hope as members of this community you take the time and gather your own evidence.  If you work, play or live in Bluff you have a role to play in the community, whether you are a Ravensdown employee, business owner, long time resident, new resident, truck driver or a truck driver’s narrow minded wife.

Open up your minds just a little and you may see that if big business prevails along our main street, smaller businesses will not prosper and you’ll be driving to town for everything.

Ravensdown And So Called Compliance

I’ve previously used comments from Rodney Green, Ravensdown CEO.  Those comments came from this email.  It’s interesting that in the email he says;

As we have done successfully for many years, please be assured we will be working with the Bluff
Community Board, Invercargill Council and Environment Southland as we evaluate these options. We will
do our part to try and ensure this collaboration can take place at speed. If all those interactions go to
schedule, we expect to be in a position to communicate with residents about the preferred options by March 2012.

Well, it seems things are not going to plan because here we are in April and RAVENSDOWN requested Public Excluded with the community board.  Unfortunately our April Fools allowed it!  The only information provided is ‘Ravensdown are awaiting compliance before removing 232 Gore Street’.

Compliance?  According to Mr Green

we comply with the stated relevant zoning regulations

Why are you ‘awaiting compliance’ if you ‘comply with the stated relevant zoning regulations’?  Since they are talking about removing the Shaw Savill building we know it’s not relating to the building itself therefore it must be relating to their activity.

For a long time I have been complaining that they don’t have resource consent for their activity.   It seems pretty obvious that they want to get their ducks in a row before they stop using the site for their activity.  They have needed resource consent because they store more than 5000kg of a Agrichemical.  They have never had consent and ICC have never made them.   Herein lies the problem I think.

My guess is that they want a retrospective resource consent.  If they knock down the building they will have pre-existing rights to rebuild on the footprint BUT they do not have pre-existing rights for their activity because there is no approval in the first place hence no paperwork (a resource consent).  When they rebuild the process will include a resource consent check, unless they sort it out NOW (before demolition) they will have nothing on file.

Council could give them retrospective resource consent but public interest in the activity may make ICC notify (if they have a brain cell) and Ravensdown won’t like that, the community being able to have a say!  ICC may show their usual disregard of their residents and grant resource consent without publicly advertising it (until after the fact).  We can still have some confidence though because once the activity stops, they have one year to begin again…or they have to re-apply.  The Resource Management Act has some good sections:-)

Action At ICC

Finally the Action Sheet and look at what’s in there

Too Much Spin For My Liking

From today’s Bluff Beacon

Bluff Urban Renewal – Cr. Neil Boniface was present to discuss his council portfolio
of Urban Renewal. After hearing council’s vision for this portfolio the board decided
to call a public meeting to allow residents to give their views on what they would like
to see for Bluff. The board would envisage a Community Development Committee,
exclusive of community board representation to be formed at this meeting.

That’s not how it happened according to my sources.  Cr Boniface suggested the public meeting and you went along with it.  And wasn’t it the public meeting that he suggested be independent of the Board? (and therefore not orchestrated).

If there is a Community Development Committee then surely that’s up to the people with an interest.  If a Board member wants to join, then so be it, just as long it is clear whether they are attending as a resident or a Board member.  I only say that because I know some were perturbed to find out their business was being reported at community board meetings as a member’s report.  Stalin’s rule has put an end to that though I suppose!

If the Board ever want to support or endorse (or fob off) the views of the committee in the future it may be necessary to have someone involved.  Or an easier way would be to ASK the committee to report progress regularly.

Interestingly, I might know some people already involved in the idea of Urban Renewal?  Hmmmm, might need to consider zoning issues first though?  It seems Linda Bell was ahead of the game…could it be she knew something was coming up?

More Irony

While I did mention to Cr Boniface last year that the Urban Renewal should have been done before the Spatial Plan and the District Plan follow that and include the visions set out by the other consultation, at least they are now getting on with it.

Ironically, discussions with the board at last night’s meeting included words like re-invent and revitalise, they probably avoided the word rezone (because they fobbed it off).  They have shown that they can’t see the big picture and thankfully a public meeting on the issue will not be a board run orchestrated waste of time.

Cr Boniface has been insightful enough to advise (repeatedly I’m told) that it should be chaired by an independent person.  In this case he is suggesting Janette Malcolm (author of Bluff Pool Feasibility Study).  I’m unsure how independent she is because her name seems to appear frequently with ICC and Venture Southland but I know she did have enough foresight to see the need for Bluff to do something.  She made special mention of it in the study.  For that alone she gets some respect from me.

In my view, the Chairperson of the Board should not run any meetings until the defamation case is resolved.  In most cases when a legal challenge is on the table you have to step aside.

By running a meeting she is preventing a portion of the community from being involved in what is their right.  The Chair brought the charges and as such should step aside from her usually public role as figure head so as to allow John Edminstin and his supporters their right to attend and speak at public meetings and to their elected members.  John and his supporters should not be denied representation and involvement because the chair is easily offended and doesn’t accept opportunity to resolve the issue.

If the board want to acknowledge that something needs to be done, they may need to acknowledge that all their rantings and ineptness over the rezoning was tarred by their egos.  Right from the start it seemed like they were pipped they weren’t needed to get the community inspired and acting.  Maybe they are not needed until they become effective and more importantly SEEN to be effective?  They have a long way to go to get respect from the majority of this community.

Have You Got Protection?

Bluff may very soon have none.

Cr Boniface and Bluff Community Board are at the meeting discussing Urban Renewal and Derelict Houses are also on the agenda so it seems apt to mention this.

One of the things I’d been meaning to follow up on was the NZ Historic Places Trust Register.  Being the longest continuously settled European town in New Zealand you would expect us to have some buildings on the register.  I have heard many times that the issues surrounding the Club Hotel and it’s condition are hampered by NZHPT registration.  That won’t be the case for long…what then I wonder?

Under Section  74 (2)(b) of the Resource Management Act, all councils when creating and reviewing their District Plans, must consider the Register.

We all seem to have the misconception that the Register protects a building or landmark.  The reality is that the District Plan provides the protection after considering the register.  ICC have begun their review of the District Plan and when they check the register they are going to find Club Hotel is NOT a Category 2 listed building.

I know the sign says it has registration but I was looking on the Register and it wasn’t there.  I finally got around to making inquiries.

Here is the response:

The Club Hotel in Bluff was thought to have been registered as a Category 2 historic place. However, some of these early registrations were not properly completed at the time and are now described as ‘deficient’. Therefore Club Hotel cannot, regrettably, be regarded as registered.

The reply also pointed out that there are no buildings in Bluff registered.

What’s the ramification of this?  Hard to know but it could mean the owner would be free to maintain, upgrade, repair or demolish the building unhindered.

If the owner has been using the registration as an excuse to do nothing, the removal of that protection allows council to force the owner to maintain the building.  Without knowing the mindset of the owner it’s hard to know.  There are economic benefits to NZHPT registration and the removal of those may force drastic action.  Who knows?

One thing this reiterates to me is ‘don’t believe everything you read’ and ‘do your own research’ and continue to follow up.  I won’t be forgetting that if we don’t rezone it will big business (industry) that has the capital to fund demolition and rebuilding of such a large site.  I doubt any cottage industries could repair and reopen the Club.  I can’t see it reopening as a pub or accommodation…such a significant feature on our main street…what’s it’s future?

Bluff Community Board – 20 February

The year feels like it’s half over but we finally have the first community board meeting of the year.  I see they will be approving the minutes of the extraordinary meeting (21 November).  This of course where they pull out their rubber stamp and go ‘yes, we rubber stamped those submissions at the meeting that we did in a workshop without notes, a minute secretary or the public knowing what we were doing’.   During that workshop they compiled their views on the wind farm and from the comments around town, a lot are not happy the board are claiming to speak for them without speaking to them.  We can only hope people remember that next elections (and when they next see their elected representatives).  Sadly though because it was a ‘workshop’ no-one actually knows who was for or against or their reasoning.  That to me is why adhering to the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act allows for transparency.  Would you vote for someone when you don’t know what they stand for and what they’ve done?  I wouldn’t.  The Lindsay Abbott’s of the world get my vote.  He not only said he wanted less Public Excluded and over expenditure but expresses that ideal when voting.  Many have said they believe in transparency but never vote against going into PE.

We have on the agenda, Cr Boniface in attendance to speak on Bluff Urban Renewal.  I understand this to be about ways to improve and promote Bluff so I hope those with vested interests go along and hear what he has to say and how he intends to lead this charge.  We won’t get any decent communication from our board and without public attendance and involvement every project will get sucked in and controlled by Bluff Community Charitable Trust (without any community involvement).

I can’t attend the meetings anymore and some people who may have attended are not available so PLEASE head along for a listen.  I will no doubt get in touch with Cr Boniface to express my thoughts and ideas.  I have already expressed to him that I feel it should have been done prior to the Spatial Plan consultation and have also promoted the idea of rezoning Gore St.

Bluff Town Hall – Monday night @ 7pm.  Agendas available at Bluff Service Centre, ICC and at the meeting.