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Map of the worst affected Christchurch suburbs. - Source: ONE News -
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While by no means perfect, the Government's earthquake announcement yesterday does make a reasonable first step in what is going to be a long and trying rebuilding in Christchurch.
Putting the residential Christchurch suburbs in different coloured zone is a logical approach which, regardless of whether you like the individual decision or not, is at the very least easily understood and communicated.
Gerry Brownlee and John Key explained the plan pretty well on Thursday, as is their job, making up perhaps for some of the arguably poor communication they showed on this issue prior to the announcement.
It was important also to see that despite a rush to make the announcement in the face of increased public pressures, the basics things were, barring a few early hiccups, done pretty much right.
Christchurch residents had easy and fast access to information they needed via the landcheck.org.nz website and quake phone lines.
They also know that they will get the chance to hear about the plan first hand in a series of local community meetings in coming days.
This is all good stuff.
That doesn't mean of course that there aren't a lot of questions, concerns and complaints about the plan. There are.
How can it be for example that single streets have houses that are both red zone (the land is a write-off) and green zone (land is good).
Does the infrastructure get rebuilt on just one side of the road in future?
How can it be that a friend of mine has had rivers of sewage and slit in his house on two occasions, yet his land is deemed safe and he is in the green zone?
Engineering
Will he be able to get the engineering on his land reviewed?
CERA boss Roger Sutton seemed to concede on Breakfast this morning that there would be mistakes with the engineering from time to time and it was likely it could well be reviewed.
Gerry Brownlee, while not ruling it out, was less willing to concede that the zoning lines will be redrawn.
Brownlee has to play bad cop I suppose, as the Government will not want to have mass reconsideration of the boundary zones.
Then there is the issue of how long are people in the orange zone going to have to wait to get their definitive answer? The list of questions is seemingly endless at the moment.
But that is to be expected with a plan like this. It can't possibly please everyone, not straight away at least.
The test for CERA and the government is to listen to these questions and concerns and show some flexibility and understanding where they can.
This process is very much just at the beginning stages; it will evolve and change, particularly given the likelihood of more earthquakes.
What Thursday's announcement was about in many ways was just showing the people of Christchurch that progress towards a rebuild is being made. The process is actually underway.
That as Bob Parker says there is some light at the tunnel, and for the majority of people in Christchurch that will be the case.
Unfortunately for the geographically unlucky ones who are caught in a no-man's land of the orange zone or feel unjustly stuck in the green zone, the light is still some way off from being seen.
