268 Madras Street, Christchurch Central City, Christchurch, Christchurch City

Breathe - New Urban Village

Christchurch City Community Halls

Watch this space. In 2015, the winners of a 2013 competition to build a new sustainable urban village on this site and other finalists failed to find the finance to get started and the project fell over. The Earthquake redevelopment authority were expecting an unrealistically high price for the land.
An international competition had been held to design and build at least 50 dwellings on this one hectare site. Television commentator Kevin McCleod was on the jury.
"Teams must determine the optimum mix of town houses, terraced homes, apartments or studios that will appeal to the Christchurch /New Zealand market at a price point that delivers the required returns for the Developer."
February 2013:Four finalists were chosen.
October 2013: The Italian entry was declared the winner.Construction was expected to start in the second half of 2014. (Roger Walker was one of the finalists)
The project was seen as a the catalyst for other residential developments within the four avenues but it lost its status as an anchor project in the rebuilding of the city.
**December 2017: **Lin Roberts publishesa paper noting that the project failed because of the then Governments rigid free markets ideology which failed to acknowledge the wider community benefits of the proposal.

"The Government was unwilling or unable to recognise that an insistence on a pure market approach would not deliver the innovative sustainable village asked for in the competition brief, and failed to factor in the opportunity cost to government, local government, local businesses and the wider Christchurch community of delaying by many years the residential development of the eastern side of the city. As a result, the early vision of the vitality that a thriving residential neighbourhood would bring to the city has not yet been realised."

**In July 2018 ** Crown rebuild company Otakaro, called for developers to submit housing proposals on the site.

**December 2018: **The saga continues. It has been announced that a non-profit housing project will occupy the space. The Otautahi Urban Guild has been chosen as the developer, a group lead by Ohu - the Office of Holistic Urbanism - a trust that runs urban development projects. The Viva project one of the original finalists in the Breathe competition is involved.

**November 2019 ** It was announced the project will go ahead after getting a $450,000 loan from ratepayers.

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