Loomio
Fri 17 Apr 2015 3:56AM

Open Space : Open Source City-Making

CWH Chloe Waretini (Loomio Helper) Public Seen by 265

Hey everyone - thanks so much for coming along to the discussion today! Please feel free to add in your notes here or other things on this topic that you'd like to discuss.

For those of you who weren't able to make it along but are interested in this topic then I'll post up a brief summary and links from the discussion here tomorrow :-)

MR

Michael Reynolds Mon 20 Apr 2015 7:52PM

I have this notion of openess and fluidity working hand in hand....our political structure, which infiltrates everything other system we have, is rigid and doesn't allow for fluid reaction.

I see localisation as a key in this discussion. Empowering local government, whatever form that takes, to have wider ranging powers seems to be a great way of creating a greater level of openess.

I really like the idea of creating cities as a commons...all land is owned by the city, leases paid pay for city services and all investment goes into productive outputs rather than land banking???

DC

David Cohen Mon 20 Apr 2015 10:07PM

@Greg There are a number of rumours about economic relationships that I'm not going to repeat as I don't want to get sued - it hasn't really been followed up.

There was a lot of secrecy around the stadium's finance, but the real star was the ORFU, who went broke - http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/otago-rugby-saved-council-bnz-nzru-bail-out-ck-112869 - after promising to find millions of dollars in funding. And to the best of my knowledge there is still nothing in public about what the ORFU pay to use the stadium. It may be nothing.

These are all pretty good arguments for greater transparency in processes - but the council seems to be resisting because the financial statements are old and often incomplete or incomprehensible.

Last published financial statement is 2013 https://www.dunedin.govt.nz/facilities/forsyth-barr-stadium/an-explanation-of-forsyth-barr-stadium-financials-september-2013

While localisation may well be part of the answer, I'd be very wary of extending the power of local government without some kind of external protection from how easy it can be for special interests to overwhelm them.

Perhaps we need to move away the idea of seeking "consultation", which can be ignored, and seek to replace it with mandated "checks and balances" so a brake can be put on behaviour before it becomes a problem that can only be dealt with too late by an election.

P&B

PAN & BAM | Creator: Stephen Chernishov Fri 8 May 2015 10:35AM

David,
I would say that the Council have pretty good financial statements. Dunedin City Holdings Limited makes $300,000,000+ per annum from their various companies. In my point there is little point wasting our energy critiquing, blaming and going on about a democratic fix.

The fact is that Dunedin has some core people who know how to work together, find money, use it and enjoy the benefits.
+ It's our turn now to put our sights on what we want to build, find ideas, investigate, plan, communicate, and create. Teamwork is key, and that's what this OS \ OS discussion is all about. I think part of the problem is that we have yet to grab ahold of how great, beautiful, teamwork capable and enlightened we actually are - then persevere to finish stuff...