Centreport
The Dom Post editorial:
That facility – jointly owned by Greater Wellington and Manawatu-Whanganui regional councils – revealed this month that a study it commissioned from economic forecaster Berl shows it contributes close to $2 billion a year to the regional economy.
Of that $2b, the report says, half comes from core port operations or the part of the business that, in 2009-10, included 46 cruise ships tying up alongside 450,000 tonnes of logs for export, the importing of 15,000 vehicles and the handling of the equivalent of 100,000 containers. That side of the business is steady.
I’d like the port to move. Not only is a terrible eyesore compared to the rest of the waterfront, but the land it is on would be terrific for cafes, bars, apartments and even maybe a hotel. Plus of course more public space also.
The port could move to Petone/Seaview which is already an industrial area. It would provide more jobs in the Hutt, and in Wellington.
The rest of the $2b comes from CentrePort’s incursion into property development, a strategy for growth the owners have presumably sanctioned but one that carries real risk, especially in volatile times.
It also surely carries political risk: how does Wellington City Council feel about a supposedly complementary local body attracting commercial tenants – until recently, reasonably happy in the capital’s Golden Mile – to its 70 hectares of waterfront?
More fundamentally, is property development a proper business for a ratepayer-owned company? Isn’t it generally so speculative a business that it is best left to entrepreneurs, who put their own – and their banks’ – cash at risk?
I’d have the port company concentrate on port operations in Petone, and have the existing Wellington land managed by the existing waterfront agency.
9(unknown*no*no*1)&guid=ON){kind=small}
October 26th, 2010 at 11:12 am
Leaving aside the question of dumping 2,000 cruise ship passengers in the wilds of darkest Petone, there is the question of depth and the capital cost of building sufficient deepwater berthage. Not all the wet stuff has the required 15 metres of low tide depth to accomodate a modern container vessel. Furthermore, how would you get sufficient rail traffic to the port for loading containers? What would you displace to make way for a container port?
[DPF: Oh keep the cruise ships in Wellington. And yes have to move the rail lines, and maybe reclaim some sea to make room. I have no idea if what I want is practical - that is for the engineers to work out
]
October 26th, 2010 at 11:12 am
If something was making me 2 billion a year, I wouldn’t be touching a thing.
Where are you going to put the railway staion and the freight terminals for rail, whose going to pay for the rail to get the freight to ships?
The ferries what about them? Move all them to Petone as well, have all your tourists moved about as far from the motorway as its possibe in Wellington.
The cruise ships will love having their passengers having a good days shopping at Seaview buying souvenier scrap metal
Hell move the port to Wainui.
When ya cafe starts employing and bringing in that sort of income then have a talk about it.
October 26th, 2010 at 11:22 am
Yeah, who needs deep water. Just unload the containers, one at a time, onto little lighters.
October 26th, 2010 at 11:25 am
Furthermore, ports need to provide shelter. The present Port Nicholson is sheltered from the Southerly, and the harbour is not big enough to generate really rough water in the prevailing Nor’Wester.
October 26th, 2010 at 11:30 am
Ports in the CBD are a historical eyesore. They are noisy, dirty, they encourage heavy traffic into the CBD, they would never get planning permission but for their existing use rights. The same problem is in Auckland except they do not want to go. The traffic management issues in Auckland are extreme. Transfer it to Onehanga/Mt Maunganui.
October 26th, 2010 at 11:37 am
There does need to be some long term planning. As someone who spends quite a bit of time in Seaview I don’t think it is suitable for a deep water port. Wind funnels from both south and north. Certainly room for much more work to be done at Seaview on land the port company owns out there. The log storage on the waterfront is a disgrace and should be shifted as soon as possible. No reason why they can’t be brought in by rail. And in the longer term as the rail tunnels are fixed and the link with Marsden Point completed then there will be a real question as to the role of all North Island ports.
October 26th, 2010 at 11:51 am
DPF
What a silly thing to argue for if you then glibly dismiss any issues with ‘that;s what engineers are for’. You haven’t really given it any thought – anyone would think you were trying to get elected to local government with that level of analysis.
Go to Petone beach and see how far you can wade out at low tide for an immediate idea of the problems. then talk to local yachties who put their keels into the mud regularly to reinforce that point.
October 26th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
this post is why opinions are like assholes
October 26th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
The rail yard is damn ugly and takes up an area about equal to the entire CBD. We reserve an enormous to re-arrange freight trains a few hundred meters from parliament.
Rail freight in NZ makes little sense. It is essentially a subsidy to the forestry and dairy industries. Shut rail freight down, cut and cover a couple of tunnels under the rail yards for commuter trains, and open the whole area up for development.
October 26th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
MM, well long time since I was in togs on Petone beach as a kid but even then I could wade out a fair way.
The problem really is that stupid Wellingtonians encroached their city onto the Port. Now if you moved Parliament to Ekatahuna and took all the snotty beauracarats with you then Wellington Port would be all Good.
Just wouldn’t need all those cafes for latte sucking civil servants.
Of course if these guys had any ball many of them would have been fired and told to FO and find themselves some work in the provinces. Someone suggested Wanganui. Nice town for socialists!
October 26th, 2010 at 12:51 pm
[Trevor Mallard] “The log storage on the waterfront is a disgrace and should be shifted as soon as possible. ”
[davidp] “The rail yard is damn ugly and takes up an area about equal to the entire CBD. ”
Given the ugly rail yards are already there, large tracts seem to be ‘unused’ and there is a shunting link directly to the waterfront, why don’t they convert part of the rail yards and shift the log storage there?
I’m not sure what we could (practically) do with the current log storage area. It doesn’t seem to fit neatly with a commercial office property development. Or entertainment/hospitality. They could perhaps build a terminal for cruise ships, but even that would seem somewhat incongruous with the rest of the working port environment.
October 26th, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Golly gosh you are right on the money DFF. In fact we dont need ports at all. Switzerland doesnt have any ports.
As for more cafes and bars, gosh again, its been at least 3 days since 20 cafes and bars in this city went bust, yeah we need more cafes and bars to support the full employment status and the soak up the huge salaries that we are all earning.
October 26th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Who the hell’s gonna trust an economic report by Berl? Anyone else remember their study of drinking that essentially accused the majority of NZers of acting irrationally? Perhaps we need Messrs Crampton and Burgess, reviewers of their alcohol report, to give this one a going over, too.
October 26th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Move the Wellington port out and what you are left with would remain the industrial arse-end of Thorndon, cold ugly and windy as all hell. You’d need a lot of cafes to make it nice, and hey – guess what the other end of town already has plenty of?
These plans are social engineering of a grand scale.
You need deep water and shelter from the prevailing nasty southerly winds for a commercial port. Thorndon container terminal already has this, seaview does not. Why re-invent the wheel?
They would be better off allowing the Hilton / whomever redevelopment of the outer tee on Queens’ Wharf, and make that the terminal for cruise ships at the same time. Everyone wins… The logs and new cars stay out at Thorndon where no-one trips over them, the ferries remain at their good spot close to all road and rail links, and the tourists get to step off their boats at a glamorous location right in the middle of town.
October 26th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
BERL said $2 billion? Well in that case I’ll roll dice, deduct $1 billion for each dot, and end up with something closer to the mark. How much nonsense does BERL have to produce before people stop taking any notice?
Case in point. Storing logs on some of the most prime real estate in the country. Logs. Now, that may be efficient, or it may not, but I’ll bet good money that to get $2 billion BERL had to overlook the opportunity cost of using that land in that way. My guess: you would very quickly end up with negative value if you compared the revenue earned from log storage with the revenue earned from, say, luxury apartments at that prime location. Imagine running an auctioh for a 99 year lease on that land. Who’s going to win: log storage? Or the luxury apartment developer? Or the business tower developer. Or the mall developer. You get the point.
Logs.
Now if BERL did not undertake that calculation then they are incompetent or corrupt. Or both.
October 26th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
lol@post. whats next? a suggestion to move the airport to Paraparaumu?
October 26th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
DPF were you drinking red wine in large volumes with the dom post editor?
October 26th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
“Case in point. Storing logs on some of the most prime real estate in the country. Logs. Now, that may be efficient, or it may not, but I’ll bet good money that to get $2 billion BERL had to overlook the opportunity cost of using that land in that way. My guess: you would very quickly end up with negative value if you compared the revenue earned from log storage with the revenue earned from, say, luxury apartments at that prime location. Imagine running an auctioh for a 99 year lease on that land. Who’s going to win: log storage? Or the luxury apartment developer? Or the business tower developer. Or the mall developer. You get the point.
Logs.
Now if BERL did not undertake that calculation then they are incompetent or corrupt. Or both.”
BAsed on the current property development climate, the trials of the resource management act and the lack of development finance one suspects logs may win hands down
October 26th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
What about they navy port?
October 26th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
What about it? (you better not be referring to the former RNZAF base now in the hands of local iwi…)
October 26th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Sorry DPF if you can generate $2bn (or $1bn allowing for the well known BERL give you whatever number you are willing to pay for philosophy) of foreign exchange from cafes in wellington – well good luck to you.
I personally regard exporting logs as a physical manifestation of our failure as a developed economy, but what the hey, if you have nothing else of value, then export the damn logs.
Bottom line, economic activity means exporting stuff, not poncing around in bloody cafes. I say we build a bloody great steel works in petone and get people back to manufacturing useful stuff out of our fabulous ironsands and coal.