Fear that ChristchurchNZ is 'under attack' from council

Saturday, 31 May 2025

ChristchurchNZ’s urban development work has included finding developers for the former City Care site on Milton St, which will be developed into housing. (File photo)

Christchurch’s economic development agency is “under attack” by the city council, not in spite of their success, but because of it.

That is according to Amy Carter, the former head of the Christchurch Foundation - a separate organisation also funded and founded by the council - who believes the council has “a clear agenda” to bring what ChristchurchNZ does in-house.

Although one city councillor shares some of Carter’s concerns, another says an ongoing review with potential implications for ChristchurchNZ’s funding is “business as usual” and not targeted.

Amy Carter, former chief executive Christchurch Foundation, believes ChristchurchNZ is “under attack” by the council. (File photo)

Carter’s comments followed an article in The Press on Thursday, which revealed ChristchurchNZ’s chair Lauren Quaintance wrote an “urgent” letter to mayor Phil Mauger in January about their urban development team.

Quaintance said the council’s lack of direction and inaction was stopping the agency from doing its job and using ratepayer funding efficiently, and people were resigning.

ChristchurchNZ was also still waiting on up to $20 million in land and cash which the council agreed to hand over in 2021, as part of ChristchurchNZ picking up urban development work.

Finance and Performance Committee chairperson Cr Sam MacDonald said the review was business as usual - ratepayers wanted assurance they were getting value for money.

Four months on - and despite a follow up letter in March - the council has only responded to say it would be inappropriate to do so until after a Section 17a review into how the council funds and delivers economic development - something with big implications for ChristchurchNZ.

Carter - who worked out of ChristchurchNZ’s offices for five years, and whose opinion was shared by others who spoke to The Press anonymously - was concerned the city council wanted to bring ChristchurchNZ’s work in-house, so the agency’s success would become the council’s.

Some of those successes included attracting tens of millions of dollars in investments for New Brighton through the urban development team, bringing SailGP to Christchurch, and helping to get Supercars in 2026.

ChristchurchNZ chairperson Lauren Quaintance wrote to the mayor in January, saying “highly unsettling” uncertainty from the council had led to staff resignations.

Carter said a key component of ChristchurchNZ’s success - the “secret sauce” - was being an entity at arm’s length of politicians, making it easier to move in business circles.

“It would be a huge mistake for our city to change the structure of an organisation that’s successful,” she said.

The Section 17a review began in January, about seven months after a separate independent review of the council and ChristchurchNZ’s urban development functions - given to The Press on Friday - found work was not being duplicated.

A recent success attributed in part to the work of ChristchurchNZ was getting Supercars to come to Christchurch in 2026.

That first review was requested by Cr Sam MacDonald, who also heads the council’s Finance and Performance Committee.

MacDonald said he was interviewed as part of the first review, but he had not received a copy of it and was not certain it had been completed (it was completed in May 2024, but not released).

He said the new review was “business as usual” and did not target ChristchurchNZ - Venues Ōtautahi was also involved.

“It’s actually about the economic development function, which sits across council, VŌ [Venues Ōtautahi] and ChristchurchNZ,” he said.

“It’s not targeted at ChristchurchNZ at all, because if we were doing that it would be a review of Christchurch NZ. But this is a review of the economic development function that ratepayers pay for,” he said.

Cr Celeste Donovan was concerned about the process, and said the order of events raising red flags for people like Carter made sense.

She was surprised MacDonald was interviewed for the initial review and she was not, considering how closely she had worked with the agency’s urban development team on the New Brighton project.

“If Sam triggered the request [for a review], then it doesn’t seem particularly independent,” she said.

Donovan said she and other councillors had asked for a copy of the agency’s letter to the mayor long before it was released to The Press under official information laws on Tuesday.

She said she would not assume intent, but the delay was concerning, and the reasons why were unsatisfactory. She also questioned why councillors had not received a copy of the independent review.

Council chief executive Mary Richardson said the reviews were not of ChristchurchNZ itself, but of urban development functions which both the agency and the council undertook. Councillors had requested or agreed to the reviews during council meetings.

The Press was given a copy of the May 2024 review on Friday as part of a media request where the council declined to comment on Carter’s opinion.

In it, independent reviewer Ruth Stokes found the two organisations’ urban development work was “interconnected but very distinct”.

Using the New Brighton project as an example, she said while the council created a masterplan with community consultation, it was ChristchurchNZ which got to work making it happen by getting developers on board.

She suggested giving ChristchurchNZ better documented responsibilities and direction, while recommending the council did some internal reviews and restructures. However, she said her review was not a substantive investigation.