City Council Asks Students to "Share An Idea"

June 8th 2011 by Sebastian Boyle

“After the recent February earthquake, a rare opportunity has emerged to develop a new vision for the Central City, one which builds on the character and heritage that remains and creates a great city for future generations,” said Chrsitchurch City Council General Manager Strategy & Planning Mike Theelen. “Council is calling on the community to ‘Share an Idea’ to help create 

this vision.”

The campaign, launched at the beginning of May, has consisted of a community expo at CBS Arena, a series of public workshops, and a website where the public can submit their ideas at
shareanidea.org.nz.

Ideas can also be emailed, phoned, or posted in. 

“We’ve been thrilled with the positive response from the community,” said Theelen. “So far 43,000 ideas have been received - which is a great outcome considering the campaign only launched four weeks ago.”

A new stage of the campaign has seen the Council establish a dropbox for ideas at Cafe ThreeSixty, in the hopes of soliciting ideas from students. Theleen said this was a group Council staff are particularly keen to get ideas from. “After all, they are the ones who will inherit the redeveloped central city in 15 to 20 years time.”

Theleen says each idea is being read, categorised, and analysed into emerging key themes and trends. The ideas will be presented to Council staff involved in developing the draft Central City Plan. “Not all ideas will be adopted or implemented but all ideas will definitely be considered – that is our promise to the community.”

Ideas can be submitted via the box in ThreeSixty, or by visiting the website at shareanidea.org.nz. Further updates are available via Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/shareanidea.org.nz.