The river corridor is probably the largest area of managed retreat in an urban centre worldwide. How can our experience inform processes of managed retreat elsewhere? The question is central to this project, which has developed a model of ‘retreat’, ‘relocation’ and ‘re-imagining’. Re-imagining asks how can the land be re-used for projects that further lower environmental and social risks.
Evan Smith
Evan Smith MNZM, red zone champion; leader in CanCERN, Eastern Vision and co-founder of the Avon Ōtākaro Network
Evan Smith was synonymous with the red zone. After his own house in Richmond was red zoned, he played a leading role in CanCERN (the Canterbury Community Earthquake Recovery Network), in Eastern Vision, and was co-founder and leader of the Avon Ōtākaro Network (AvON). He fought hard to ensure that red zoned land would be set aside for community and ecological purposes as part of a vision for regenerating eastern Christchurch. He died in August 2020 when this vision seemed secure. This entry reproduces two articles from The Press: ‘Evan Smith, “supreme champion” of Christchurch’s red zone, has died’ and ‘Life story: the “cantankerous bugger” who saved a community’, both by Dominic Harris.
‘Evan Smith, “supreme champion” of Christchurch’s red zone, has died’, 28 August 2020
Evan Smith, the driving force behind a decade-long effort to save a huge swathe of Christchurch’s red zone from development, has died after a long battle with liver cancer. Smith led a campaign to see earthquake-ravaged areas along the Avon River turned into a park. His efforts to save the land were assured in June when the city council formally took over management of the former residential red zone land in the river corridor, Southshore, South New Brighton and Brooklands from the Crown. With it came a promise from Mayor Lianne Dalziel that his vision would come to fruition, no matter how long it took. ‘The commitment we can make to you today Evan is that your dream will become a reality,’ Dalziel said at the time.
Smith, who was 68, died peacefully and surrounded by family and close friends on Friday morning at the WesleyCare rest home. Fellow campaigner Peter Beck described him as an ‘extraordinarily good friend’. ‘He was the supreme champion for the east of Christchurch post the earthquakes,’ said Beck, the former Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, who worked alongside Smith for the Avon-Ōtākaro Network (AvON). ‘He led the campaign that we had to ensure that the wishes of the local community were respected and honoured, and the community played a huge part in making decisions about the east.’
Smith lived in the east and experienced first-hand the trauma, pain and distress of what happened. A co-founder of CanCERN, a network of community group representatives from quake-affected neighbourhoods, he was willing to be a strong advocate for the rights of the community and both work with and take on the powers-that-be. Smith later spearheaded a petition asking parliament to work with the people of Christchurch to ensure 602 hectares of red-zoned areas became a park and reserve, rather than being built on. In a gesture full of symbolism, a copy of the petition and its 18,500 signatures was returned to members of AvON in June by Dalziel, who as Christchurch East MP first received it on the steps of parliament in May 2012.
Although it will be decades before his vision is fully realised, for Smith it was a moment of great hope. ‘It is closing the circle,’ he told Stuff at the time. ‘I am pleased that things seem to be getting into place.’ Dalziel, who first got to know Smith when she was an MP for Christchurch East, described him as an ‘extraordinary citizen’ with a ‘passion for the community and the environment. He never wavered in his belief that people who were affected by decisions had a right to be involved in decision-making processes. He has left a powerful legacy for us all and I will never forget him.’
Smith’s efforts saw him last year become a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, an honour Beck said was ‘most justified for someone who has done so much for the city’. Chrissie Williams, another long-time friend who chairs a consultative group for the transformation of the red zone, recalled how she, Beck and Smith “co-mentored” each other through the early days of red zone campaigning. ‘The word I use for Evan is “persistent” He just didn’t give up. Even when he was in hospital a number of times, and even quite recently, he kept thinking about what he could be doing for the community. He was just an amazing man.’
Smith’s own Facebook page has filled with tributes. ‘There are many people who have worked tirelessly for the campaign to green the red zone. We would not be where we are today without any of them. But especially, without you,’ Ashley Campbell said. Mark Gibson described him as ‘a warrior ... to the very end’. ‘[A] wonderful man who touched so many of our lives and gave us hope for our future,’ Patrick Boland said.
‘Life story: the “cantankerous bugger” who saved a community’, 5 September 2020
Punk rocker. Cancer researcher. Urban guerrilla. Cantankerous bugger. A leader of endless vision, energy and passion who reshaped a city, was adored by his family and admired deeply by friends. Evan Smith was so much to so many, but will be remembered in Christchurch as the man who ensured the earthquake-ravaged east will be turned into parkland, one who fought for the voices of its disenfranchised people not to be overlooked and who made certain the memories that echo down its lonely streets are not forgotten. ‘He really engaged right in the guts of life, with people who were right on the margins,’ his close friend, the Reverend Peter Beck, said. ‘That’s where he enjoyed himself most.’
Smith, who died on 28 August at the age of 68 after years of living with liver cancer, was the whirlwind force behind efforts to save a huge swathe of land around the Avon River. That effort culminated last year in the Government agreeing on a 30-year plan to breathe new life into 602 hectares of riverside land, including a 345 ha green spine running from the central city to the sea, with 200,000 trees, walking and cycling paths. This June, the city council formally took over management of the river corridor from the Crown; with it
Evan had an ability to corral and inspire people. Here he is talking to residents and members of the Riverside Community Group in Richmond a year after the 4 September 2010 quake.
John Kirk-Anderson / Stuff
came a promise from mayor Lianne Dalziel that Smith’s vision would come to fruition. ‘He was the inspiration and the catalyst to enable what has happened,” Beck said. ‘It wouldn’t have happened without him.’
The quakes in 2010 and 2011 shattered Christchurch leaving thousands of homes damaged irreparably and riverside neighbourhoods replaced by a barren “red zone”. Smith played a leading role in three key organisations – CanCERN (the Canterbury Community Earthquake Recovery Network), Eastern Vision, and the Avon-Otākāro Network (AvON) – that together laid the foundations for the red zone to become Christchurch’s green heart. After enduring the pain of loss himself, his Lois Place home in Richmond ‘buggered’ by the quakes, Smith became the conscience of the community. ‘Decisions were being made by council and others without any reference to local people who’d suffered, ‘No-one was listening to us, and he was the guy who began organising us to take them on.’
Tom McBrearty, who co-founded CanCERN with Smith – and fellow campaigner Leanne Curtis – said Smith understood the power of community ‘was pride of place’. ‘CanCERN was about keeping community values together and telling political leaders that if you listen to the community there will be more solutions and better solutions.’ Smith brought an ability to cajole and corral people into action, to listen and to persuade, as well as a ‘rock-solid opinion’ that would ‘cut through the noise’. He was a ‘torchbearer’, McBrearty said, ‘not in a way that a torchbearer says, “follow”, but rather, “listen to the community”, and understood that each community had its own identity’.
On one occasion Smith was at a meeting where the city council and the Earthquake Commission argued all houses in Medway had been assessed for damage. It was his particular method of communication that drove home the wildness of the claim, McBrearty said. ‘He got everyone from Medway St to stand up, and said “those that have had their homes checked, sit down”. We did it street by street in the whole area – it was a real shock to the powers that be. He was an urban guerrilla - even when people were probably opposed to his thinking. They often came away grudgingly admitting that he was a good man.’
For Hayley Guglietta, who worked with Smith at AvON, his great skill was being a conduit between the community and bureaucracy – smoothing the way for projects to get off the ground. ‘That’s reflected in the global settlement and the regeneration plan, and the huge amount of people and energy that are now collectively part of it.’ Although he suspected he might not live to see it, Smith helped create a new strategic direction for AvON earlier this year. ‘He brought us along in that journey of succeeding him – he laid even more foundations.’ His efforts were recognised on the national stage last year, when he was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit.
Born in Kaiapoi on December 3, 1951, Smith went to university in both Canterbury and Otago, earning a first class bachelor of science degree in zoology in 1973. While at Otago he won a trip around the world, and in 1974 secured a scholarship allowing him to study at University College London for a PhD in cancer research. ‘It was a compelling underground community and it grew when parts of London were in riots and Thatcher’s government was at war with the striking miners,’ Beck said. ‘It was an extraordinary time, and he renewed his interest in music – the keyboard and trumpet – and played in punk and reggae bands, doing tours of Europe. He was into it in a big way.’
Evan (right) is pictured here collecting letter boxes from vacant red-zoned properties in 2013 to create commemorative sculptures and arts projects.
John Kirk-Anderson / Stuff
Smith returned to New Zealand in 1994 and worked in housing, disability support, the health sector and tertiary education, often in senior management. He met Julie and her daughter, Serena, and after marrying had a son, Jason. Granddaughter Brooke, who Smith adored, came along five years ago. While fighting for others dominated his later life – soon after the quakes he drove a campaign that resulted in a petition of 18,500 signatures asking the Government to work with the people to create a river park and reserve – family remained paramount.
‘Evan was a great father and husband to our family,’ said Jason, who four years ago gave his father part of his own liver to help prolong his life. ‘We went on several amazing family holidays over the years – when we didn’t go on holiday, we’d always do small family things. Whilst seemingly simple they were amazing reflecting back on it now. We’d do things like go out to Redcliffs for an ice cream and eat it on the waterfront there. The whole time whilst eating ice cream the atmosphere was always filled with laughs and banter between our family, making them always memorable and something to look forward to. Moments like this are the ones I’ll miss the most.’
It is perhaps fitting that Smith’s funeral was on 4 September, the 10th anniversary of the first Canterbury quake. And it is perhaps unsurprising that he helped arrange the service with friends over Zoom calls during the coronavirus lockdown, joking he would be too busy to haunt them if things went wrong. ‘He could be a cantankerous old bugger, and he wasn’t the perfect human being, whatever that might be … [but] I’m proud and so fortunate I met that man, and he became involved in my life,’ Beck said.
Teoti Jardine, a close friend and fellow leader of AvON, said Smith’s clarity of vision allowed him to see the “humps and bumps” along the way. ‘Whatever happens in the red zone, the memories need to be honoured. He has set the foundation for everything to spring from now.’ For McBrearty, who with Smith drank wine from broken bottles sieved through a tea strainer in the aftermath of the quakes, he was a ‘deeply emotional friend.’
Smith’s legacy is one he apparently foresaw four years ago. While being filmed at the site of his old home he heard a bellbird there for the first time. ‘That’s quite something. That gives me a real sense of hope for the future,’ he said. ‘I think that bellbird was saying to him, “come home”’, McBrearty said. ‘I want that bellbird to carry the promise that has been given to him and to make sure they deliver on it.’
Text from articles by Dominic Harris in The Press, 28 August and 5 September 2020