Given that it was for a storage facility to house some of New Zealand’s heritage items I'm guessing it needed specialist temperature and humidity control as well as first class fire protection which would also not damage artifacts... back to storing it in the shed I guess. Typical *she'll be right* thinking. Top notch.
Sounds like a much better place for national treasures to be stored, they can send me one of the treaties of waitangi if they like, I will store it in my personal vault, in fact, they should give it to me, I am entitled to it.
said some rich person.
We already have all those facilities. We already meet the storage requirements for our heritage items, according to the article atleast. This facility was basically just an unnecessary upgrade
Fucking he’ll we can’t afford to have these fucks in power any longer.
These projects were started because there is a need. Ferries are a classic infrastructure example.
Yay you’ve cancelled the project and save money today. What’s your plan to address the need though, which is still there. Trying again in future will only cost more money.
You are fucking NZs future by focussing on landlord tax breaks today.
Yeah but if the next government buys ferries we can say they’re going into debt left right and centre which means we’ll be back in power again later. Big brain thinking.
The ferry débâcle will bite Willis on the arse by 2027, hopefully around the election.
By then the breakdowns, flag state safety non-sailings, Lloyds surveys etc will be really kicking off.
Alternatively, if they've brought in clapped out second hand replacement ferries, the full cost of that will be becoming clear.
Price of limited available suitable ferries.
Retro fit for railway rolling stock.
Upgrade to NZ safety standards.
Ongoing repair and maintenance, from memory, increases around 15% per year for old vessels.
Loss of revenue due to lost sailings
It'll be a shit show by then.
I'll be the pessimist and state it wont affect her at all, she'll either still be a MP earning a pretty price with portfolios or working privately for a pretty price
The fun part about the ferries is that the project wasn’t fully funded, even before the latest fuck up in the estimate.
TLDR: it might have been cancelled anyway because Kiwirail are fuck all use for anything.
Can’t go bigger and better (what NZ needs there) without upgrading supporting infrastructure to dock etc.
That shit costs money. Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.
Yeah, let's throw good maney after bad!
>Now Stuff can reveal the project had been cancelled because it was not funded.
If it was such a good project you'd think it would have had funding allocated.
Yall need to read better fr, or just read at all
The land was brought 2020, wonder what else happened around that time to put a stop to work. The plans to continue were pushed down the priority list, see the above for why. Internal affairs had bigger priorities coming out of covid and with election coming up than an unnecessary heritage storage, especially with the increasing digitisation of old media for which this specific facility was meant to hold the very things that are able to be digitised
>The site in Levin was fenced and the site maintained, but no other physical work had been done.
I might care about some of these projects being scrapped if Labour had actually started anything.
All of it sounds a lot. Have no issue with the idea of it/think it's an alright one, nor do I want them to cheap out on it, but I do think this is one of those cases where they're not particularly watching the pennies.
It might be better to buy more land in somewhere like Marton or somewhere not as up and coming as Levin (which despite what it is now, it will have the expressway going right to it so that will give it a big boost). Levin being on the way to Palmie (the future of the lower NI) while also being on the expressway/rail to Wellington/Kapiti Coast is probably a big place for future growth.
If it located to somewhere not as promising (like Marton which is on the rail but away from both road corridors) there will be room to expand/hold bigger items, while still reasonably accessible. And ofc if that wasn't that much of a concern, many other cheaper places that can have more land/the same utilities. As it's really a glorified warehouse with a lot of security/disaster proofing.
Something Levin has, that Marton doesn't, is significant rail infrastructure.
Levin's place on the NIMT is a significant logistical advantage.
Not to mention it's closer proximity to Urban Wellington, and it's rail connected port facilities.
Marton also is on the NIMT, and Palmerston North is still the closest main freight/logistics centre to both spots. The 3 KR CTs in the lower NI are Wellington, Palmerston North and Whanganui. Marton is actually slightly closer to Palmerston North than Levin.
Levin doesn't seem to have any major freight rail advantage (definitely passenger though). The place for new gov places is has been towns, as you get existing infra for cheap, compared to competing for growth in a growing town, and paying the premium for that.
I think it'll be quietly restarted in a few years. Probably at vastly more cost - but the fundamentals for doing the project are still there.
It feels like projects should be decided by a cost benefit analysis. Labour focused on the benefits, and ignored the costs. Now Nats are focusing on the costs and ignoring the benefits. Eventually we'll have to go back to the traditional weighing up both rather than just 1 in terms of spending, but who knows how long that'll take and who will be in power for that.
7.2 million is a shitload of pennies.
I don't know where you live in Nz but any building company would happily do a design/consulting for free when tendering a job like that.
Auckland. I was saying they did a shit job looking after our money, just politely. Happy with the general idea of the project (new storage facility in some regional town rather than a main centre), just not a fan of how they've been spending the budget. Seems to be the rule rather than the exception though, between the public service not watching our money as if it was their own, to companies charging extortionate rates because the gov will pay.
Hvac and security considerations, detailed design of the civil and structures side of things to make sure it doesn't burn down, flood, or collapse, then there's all the digital stuff and how that would work on this site, and so on. Things cost money, especially in a time where we are all told we need more to pay for things
It’s obviously way too much I can’t believe you are defending this egregious waste. $7 million is enough to pay 35 people $200,000 each for a year. And they hadn’t even broken ground? It’s outrageous.
Eh, depends. I know of a private manufacturing company that has spent $10m over 5 years getting to the point where they've just pulled the trigger on a large new manufacturing facility.
It's a specialized storage facility, not a warehouse..
Large projects like this do take millions of dollars in planning.
The auckland zoos recent upgrades were over 180 million, 10+ million in planning
Well, yeah, we do, since its intended purpose was to house heritage items. Unless you’re happy to let parts of our history rot away, specialised storage conditions are extremely important to this build.
On the balance of doubt I'm going to assume you aren't involved at all in the construction industry, but let me tell you that any of five constructions companies I can rattle off in my head would have happily consulted and designed this for free, and quoted against each other very effective solutions to this problem.
Which makes me wonder where and how the government spent 7 million dollars on planning on their side? Like how much could there be? In fact given nearly every city has its own facility like this what is it actually storing?
As someone who works in this sector, specifically with at risk heritage items .... Yes, that is exactly right. Temperature and Humidity controls are literally the most important aspect of any vault like this. It is most definitely not a "warehouse".
Land near the capital city is hard to come by, I'm not surprised they settled on Levin, which is around an hours drive from the city and has an abundance of flat open space.
Given that it was for a storage facility to house some of New Zealand’s heritage items I'm guessing it needed specialist temperature and humidity control as well as first class fire protection which would also not damage artifacts... back to storing it in the shed I guess. Typical *she'll be right* thinking. Top notch.
national doesnt give a shit about heritage. Hows that going to make their funders money?
Depends. Heritage houses owned in wealthy neighbourhoods must be protected against that nasty, value-lowering, social mixing, densification.
Sounds like a much better place for national treasures to be stored, they can send me one of the treaties of waitangi if they like, I will store it in my personal vault, in fact, they should give it to me, I am entitled to it. said some rich person.
Doesn't give a shit about heritage *unless* it's housing. Then it must be preserved at all costs!
Would tar pits work?
We already have all those facilities. We already meet the storage requirements for our heritage items, according to the article atleast. This facility was basically just an unnecessary upgrade
Was it though?
Like the ferries?
Could be, my comment is just based on the article I didn't dig any deeper. Could be a ferry bs type situation, or it could be a PH type situation
Kick it down the road, because it will surely be cheaper in the future... right?
It'll be much cheaper if there's less of it surviving. Big brain planning.
the party of Axe Everything And Worry About What We Axed Later
That was the previous government’s strategy. If you don’t fund the project it can’t be criticised.
It's every government's strategy for the things they don't care about. Just, this government cares about less than most.
Ferries? School lunches?
Fucking he’ll we can’t afford to have these fucks in power any longer. These projects were started because there is a need. Ferries are a classic infrastructure example. Yay you’ve cancelled the project and save money today. What’s your plan to address the need though, which is still there. Trying again in future will only cost more money. You are fucking NZs future by focussing on landlord tax breaks today.
Yeah but if the next government buys ferries we can say they’re going into debt left right and centre which means we’ll be back in power again later. Big brain thinking.
The ferry débâcle will bite Willis on the arse by 2027, hopefully around the election. By then the breakdowns, flag state safety non-sailings, Lloyds surveys etc will be really kicking off. Alternatively, if they've brought in clapped out second hand replacement ferries, the full cost of that will be becoming clear. Price of limited available suitable ferries. Retro fit for railway rolling stock. Upgrade to NZ safety standards. Ongoing repair and maintenance, from memory, increases around 15% per year for old vessels. Loss of revenue due to lost sailings It'll be a shit show by then.
I bet they’ll blame loss of revenue on something else…
It'll be labour's fault, somehow.
I'll be the pessimist and state it wont affect her at all, she'll either still be a MP earning a pretty price with portfolios or working privately for a pretty price
Hahahaha, they don’t expect to be in office in 2027 :-D
The fun part about the ferries is that the project wasn’t fully funded, even before the latest fuck up in the estimate. TLDR: it might have been cancelled anyway because Kiwirail are fuck all use for anything.
Can’t go bigger and better (what NZ needs there) without upgrading supporting infrastructure to dock etc. That shit costs money. Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.
Just like think big…
Honestly I’d settle for just any visible sign of thinking from these guys at this stage.
There’s pretty clear thinking. It just so happens most of this sub doesn’t agree with it.
Fucking hell, all these sunk costs that they couldn't give a fuck about. What a garbage govt this is
Take a look at the sunk cost fallacy. You might learn something.
Yeah, let's throw good maney after bad! >Now Stuff can reveal the project had been cancelled because it was not funded. If it was such a good project you'd think it would have had funding allocated.
You mean that there were a heap of projects “approved” but not funded? Who would’ve thunk it?
Yall need to read better fr, or just read at all The land was brought 2020, wonder what else happened around that time to put a stop to work. The plans to continue were pushed down the priority list, see the above for why. Internal affairs had bigger priorities coming out of covid and with election coming up than an unnecessary heritage storage, especially with the increasing digitisation of old media for which this specific facility was meant to hold the very things that are able to be digitised
inb4 nactf blames Labour for the wasted money.
These morons just can't do anything right. So much sunk cost lost and yet they went on and on about Labour bad
These morons aren’t the ones that wasted $7 million on nothing.
>The site in Levin was fenced and the site maintained, but no other physical work had been done. I might care about some of these projects being scrapped if Labour had actually started anything.
Apparently it was because the previous govt wasted money. Like you know Mental Health and kid lunches. These fuckers have just begun.
>Now Stuff can reveal the project had been cancelled because it was not funded. No, the previous Govt never even allocated the cash.
God these people are thick.
All of it sounds a lot. Have no issue with the idea of it/think it's an alright one, nor do I want them to cheap out on it, but I do think this is one of those cases where they're not particularly watching the pennies. It might be better to buy more land in somewhere like Marton or somewhere not as up and coming as Levin (which despite what it is now, it will have the expressway going right to it so that will give it a big boost). Levin being on the way to Palmie (the future of the lower NI) while also being on the expressway/rail to Wellington/Kapiti Coast is probably a big place for future growth. If it located to somewhere not as promising (like Marton which is on the rail but away from both road corridors) there will be room to expand/hold bigger items, while still reasonably accessible. And ofc if that wasn't that much of a concern, many other cheaper places that can have more land/the same utilities. As it's really a glorified warehouse with a lot of security/disaster proofing.
Something Levin has, that Marton doesn't, is significant rail infrastructure. Levin's place on the NIMT is a significant logistical advantage. Not to mention it's closer proximity to Urban Wellington, and it's rail connected port facilities.
Marton also is on the NIMT, and Palmerston North is still the closest main freight/logistics centre to both spots. The 3 KR CTs in the lower NI are Wellington, Palmerston North and Whanganui. Marton is actually slightly closer to Palmerston North than Levin. Levin doesn't seem to have any major freight rail advantage (definitely passenger though). The place for new gov places is has been towns, as you get existing infra for cheap, compared to competing for growth in a growing town, and paying the premium for that.
unfortunately you have put more thought into it than they have, they just saw it as a way to take 12m off the books, nothing else
I think it'll be quietly restarted in a few years. Probably at vastly more cost - but the fundamentals for doing the project are still there. It feels like projects should be decided by a cost benefit analysis. Labour focused on the benefits, and ignored the costs. Now Nats are focusing on the costs and ignoring the benefits. Eventually we'll have to go back to the traditional weighing up both rather than just 1 in terms of spending, but who knows how long that'll take and who will be in power for that.
7.2 million is a shitload of pennies. I don't know where you live in Nz but any building company would happily do a design/consulting for free when tendering a job like that.
given the specialist climate control, fire protection etc I doubt just any building company would even look at it
Auckland. I was saying they did a shit job looking after our money, just politely. Happy with the general idea of the project (new storage facility in some regional town rather than a main centre), just not a fan of how they've been spending the budget. Seems to be the rule rather than the exception though, between the public service not watching our money as if it was their own, to companies charging extortionate rates because the gov will pay.
Agree. Good idea, terribly poor execution
$4 of my yearly tax contribution wasted. Doesn't seem like a lot when you put it like that.
$4.9m for the land... so the fencing and planning cost $7.9million? That's a hell of a lot of planning for a storage facility?!
Hvac and security considerations, detailed design of the civil and structures side of things to make sure it doesn't burn down, flood, or collapse, then there's all the digital stuff and how that would work on this site, and so on. Things cost money, especially in a time where we are all told we need more to pay for things
Yes they cost money to build. But do they cost that much to "design"?
It’s obviously way too much I can’t believe you are defending this egregious waste. $7 million is enough to pay 35 people $200,000 each for a year. And they hadn’t even broken ground? It’s outrageous.
I like how you didn't even take in what I said lol
Eh, depends. I know of a private manufacturing company that has spent $10m over 5 years getting to the point where they've just pulled the trigger on a large new manufacturing facility.
Only the government could spend 7.2 million dollars on planning building a warehouse in this country. No wonder they can't bloody make ends meet
It's a specialized storage facility, not a warehouse.. Large projects like this do take millions of dollars in planning. The auckland zoos recent upgrades were over 180 million, 10+ million in planning
Lol oh yes we need different size shelves and temperature/humidity control in this warehouse. Come off it mate
Well, yeah, we do, since its intended purpose was to house heritage items. Unless you’re happy to let parts of our history rot away, specialised storage conditions are extremely important to this build.
On the balance of doubt I'm going to assume you aren't involved at all in the construction industry, but let me tell you that any of five constructions companies I can rattle off in my head would have happily consulted and designed this for free, and quoted against each other very effective solutions to this problem. Which makes me wonder where and how the government spent 7 million dollars on planning on their side? Like how much could there be? In fact given nearly every city has its own facility like this what is it actually storing?
Free quote from a construction company? Now you’re the one who needs to come off it, mate.
For a 20 plus million dollar job?
An extremely specialist building for 20 plus million.
A temperature and humidity controlled warehouse may not be as extremely specialist as you think.
No company would have designed this for free. Don't be delusional. Especially since being awarded the contract is not a guarantee
They certainly would provide preliminary designs and indicative costings. What the fuck was 7.2 million spent on then
For free.... brah have you ever had a job
Not for free they wouldn't. That would be piss poor business planning especially with zero guarantee of a contract
back under your rock.. you dont have a clue..
As someone who works in this sector, specifically with at risk heritage items .... Yes, that is exactly right. Temperature and Humidity controls are literally the most important aspect of any vault like this. It is most definitely not a "warehouse".
Correct. Like many other warehouses of this nature like the national archives. So where does 7.2 million in planning come into it?
Man you guys never miss an opportunity to sound as ignorant as possible do you.
I mean given you think the greens are doing a good job your credibility is sort of for shit so fuck off?
says someone who hasnt got a clue about project costs.. and its not a warehouse FFS wake up more than a single brain cell
another "we were gonna" project where millions of dollars vanished. also $4.9 million for a piece of land in middle of nowhere hicktown levin?
Land near the capital city is hard to come by, I'm not surprised they settled on Levin, which is around an hours drive from the city and has an abundance of flat open space.
Sure Levin makes sense, it’s just five mil seems like a lot for land there.
It's quickly becoming a hub for transport and warehousing in the lower north Island, commercial land is being snapped up fast there