Watching the waterfront - from a distance

File under: waterfront, controversy, Wellington

While I've been excitedly blogging about the entries for the Waitangi precinct design competition, the good burghers of Waterfront Watch are of course less than enthused. They held a meeting yesterday to oppose any new buildings around Waitangi Park, and one of their arguments is that buildings would bring private uses to public land.

They held their meeting at the Wellington Rowing Club. Which is a building. On the waterfront. With no publicly accessible uses on the ground floor. Am I the only one who detects a soupçon of irony here?

I had intended to attend the meeting and put another point of view, but the weekend's activities had left me a little too tired to face that sort of conflict. However, I was looking at the exhibition of competition entries later that day, and noticed that many of the people there had obviously just come from the meeting. I caught a glimpse of one gentleman's feedback form: he had written "completely inappropriate" for each of the entries, except for UN Studios' scheme, for which he had written "Deplorable". I also noticed his address: Churton Park. Ah, it's good to see some informed comment from connoisseurs of urban vitality.