The other day I met a guy from Chengdu, so I looked it up on YouTube. I also follow a modest YouTuber who uploads videos of Saint Petersburg when he goes for walks with his wife and granddaughter.

I’m not suggesting that Christchurch should look like one of these big cities with 10 or 20 million people, but could we please knock down that derelict building that’s next to the bus exchange? It has walls falling down, and graffiti everywhere. Then there’s the case of shipping containers on the side of the road.

These inner-city features give third world vibes. I don’t care what these buildings are, please destroy them.

We also need a city-wide land tax to encourage development. There are empty sections all around Christchurch that aren’t being used for anything (or they are just for parking a jetboat). I saw two properties in Sumner that are used for parking a jet boat, and there are places in Riccarton like Kirkwood Ave and Leslie Street, each have an empty section which has been empty for 20+ years. The central and local governments aren’t doing anything to solve these problems.

  • BalpeenHammer@lemmy.nz
    31·
    1 year ago

    The land owner will be bankrupt and end up in jail because of debt owed to the council. Then I guess the land can be confiscated by the city and the city can do whatever it wants with it.

    Good plan to confiscate property people.

    • David Palmer@lemmy.nzEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      Or more likely they’ll sell it in a hurry to a developer who wants to - ya know - develop it. Why the media keeps calling these shameless landbankers “developers” is beyond me.

      Still fighting insurance? Too bad, it’s been more than 10 years. I’m sick of living in a half-finished city.

      • BalpeenHammer@lemmy.nz
        22·
        1 year ago

        Why would anybody buy it? For whatever reason it’s not profitable to build on and now you are going to be millions and millions of debt as every year your rates go up astronomically.

        Still fighting insurance? Too bad, it’s been more than 10 years. I’m sick of living in a half-finished city.

        Do you really think confiscating land is going to solve this issue?

        • David Palmer@lemmy.nzEnglish
          3·
          1 year ago

          It’s not that it wouldn’t be profitable to build on it. It’s that it’s more profitable not to build on it.

          How would you incentivise these owners to fix their hideous eyesore properties? The carrot approach clearly hasn’t worked, so I think its time for the stick.

          • BalpeenHammer@lemmy.nz
            14·
            1 year ago

            It’s not that it wouldn’t be profitable to build on it. It’s that it’s more profitable not to build on it.

            Why do you say that? What’s the profit in parking your boat on a piece of land?

            How would you incentivise these owners to fix their hideous eyesore properties?

            I don’t know. How about we round them up and put them in jail? How about public hangings? How about we flog them in the town square?

            I mean why do people need to be punished and hurt because they don’t use their property the way you want them to? Why can’t we just leave people alone FFS!

            I can’t stand this attitude. Let’s hurt people because they don’t act like I want them to! It’s fucking sadistic.

            • David Palmer@lemmy.nzEnglish
              3·
              1 year ago

              If the owner knows the value of the land is just gonna keep going up with no additional effort on their part, why spend the money to build anything on it? May as well just sit on it with the eventual promise of a fat untaxed capital gain. This is how land banking works.

              People need to be punished because it’s been over ten years and as I look out my office window right now I can see two derelict decaying buildings and two enormous empty gravel lots. You’re really happy for our central city to remain half-finished indefinitely? It’s a national embarrassment that we haven’t managed to rebuild the city yet.

              • BalpeenHammer@lemmy.nz
                14·
                1 year ago

                If the owner knows the value of the land is just gonna keep going up with no additional effort on their part, why spend the money to build anything on it?

                First of all doesn’t the value of land go up every year even he does put something on it? Wouldn’t it go up even more if it there was something on it?

                Secondly why do you want to punish the owner just because land values go up.

                What are you going to do to make the value of the land go down anyway?

                People need to be punished because it’s been over ten years and as I look out my office window right now I can see two derelict decaying buildings and two enormous empty gravel lots.

                I don’t think people should be punished because of your feelings though.

                You’re really happy for our central city to remain half-finished indefinitely?

                If that’s the price of freedom then yes.

                It’s a national embarrassment that we haven’t managed to rebuild the city yet

                I could go on and on about national embarrassments in this country. You think empty lots are an embarrassment? Take a look at the buildings in most cities, take a look at most houses FFS. Leaky, poorly insulated, mouldy, run down, fragile buildings as far as the eye can see.