Goodbye City to Sea bridge, hello lawyers

Friday, 6 December 2024

A 2012 photo of the City to Sea Bridge art work.

Tom Hunt is a senior journalist for The Post, covering local government and Wellington issues.

OPINION: Goodbye City to Sea Bridge. Hello lawyers.

It wasn’t even that close. In the end, 11 councillors voted to demolish the City to Sea Bridge and seven voted to save it.

It was ultimately about money. To save the bridge and make it structurally sound was said to cost $90 million to $120m, before a last minute change took that down to $85m.

There is also the case to be made that the bridge can be brought up to a safe level ‒ though not the equivalent of 100% of new building standards ‒ for a lot less than $85m.

The cost to demolish and do other work, such as install a pedestrian crossing, was $36.5m.

Boniface Kinnear from Auckland jumps off the City to Sea Bridge into Frank Kitts Lagoon in 2013. The jump is not advised.

So for $48.5m the bridge that played a part in opening Wellington to its waterfront, where memories range from graduation to first kiss to first protest, was condemned.

(Of course all the money cold have been saved by simply leaving as it is and assume the risk that it may kill someone sometime. It would, after all, take a few deaths to make it deadlier than the nine-people-and-counting who have fallen off an unprotected waterfront harbour edge and around and died).

But safety first and all that. So for $48.5m, the bridge is doomed.

The 2012 Occupy Wellington protest on the City to Sea Bridge.

That is a large number by any stretch but let’s look at it in context.

The council expects debt this year to hit $2.1b. The Golden Mile revamp will cost $139m (albeit with the Government sharing the cost). It will spend $593m over a decade improving social housing plus a further $325m on keeping it running. Another $1.1b over 10 years will go towards transport improvements – and not just bike lanes.

An indicative image of the proposed options to replace the City to Sea Bridge, which both feature a new set of traffic lights.

A regular criticism of the council has been that it goes gold-plated everything. Here, it hasn’t. And in some ways that is to be applauded.

But it is in this situation for obvious reason. If it hadn’t spent years ignoring pipes, if it had just decided to leave the Golden Mile as it is, if it hadn’t agreed to add hundreds of millions to public housing improvements, if it had found some savings as it made plans to hikes rates for the past four years and next nine, then $48.5m to save a popular and successful bridge wouldn’t have been such a bitter pill.

But for all councillors except Nureddin Abdurahman, Diane Calvert, Iona Pannett, Tony Randle, Nīkau Wi Neera, and Nicola Young (with Ray Chung voting to delay voting), it was too bitter.

The bridge will likely now be demolished and, sad though it is for those with fond memories, that is what democracy is.

Now we need to find savings elsewhere, the council is in for a protracted fight for any cuts it wants to make. Begonia House will be next. And it will roll on for years.

Demolition will almost certainly be done over summer, long before Wellingtonians get a chance to vote for change.

All that can stop it now is a judicial review. They are already being threatened and given the calibre of those Wellingtonians – including lawyers, developers, architects and engineers – opposing demolition it will be a good fight.

So now it will be a race between the council wrecking ball swinging and the lawyers.

Because a judicial finding means nothing when it is a decision on a pile of rubble.