It's two months until the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority winds up, and splits into two separate entities – Regenerate Christchurch, which will be a joint organisation with the City Council, and Otakaro Limited, which will manage crown-backed anchor projects, and assets.

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But will the agency, that’s had almost complete control of everything inside the inner city for the past five years, be viewed as a success or a setback for Christchurch in years to come?

What lessons have been learnt from the government's management of the most damaging event in New Zealand history?

Christchurch's former mayor Sir Bob Parker says following the February 22^nd earthquake the city and its people were in disarray, while CERA seemed to be the answer to what would clearly be trying times ahead.

“There were so many unknowns; we didn't even know that we weren't going to get another, even bigger earthquake down the track, so all of those things were in our minds as we made those decisions.”

He says it’s easy to look back and find things that could have been done better, but at the time he never doubted the government was making decisions it truly believed would be in everyone’s best interests.

“I was there, I was watching people, I was listening to the decision making process and I know that's what was driving people".

But the two term Christchurch mayor says the mood towards CERA first started to change when the city council unveiled Share an Idea in May 2011.

It collected 106,000 ideas from members of the public, which informed the council's Central City Plan but this was superseded by the government blueprint.

“We were very proud and knew it represented what our community wanted; when that disappeared to the inside of CERA for a number of months I can remember that feeling of being disempowered”.

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The Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee says the blueprint was strongly influenced by the themes originated from Share an Idea.

But the Greens Christchurch spokesperson Eugenie Sage says it was well out of touch with what the community wanted.

"We’ve had big, potential white elephants like the stadium, the sports centre and the convention centre being foisted on Christchurch city, and the council forced into selling its assets to help fund the rebuild”.

However, Gerry Brownlee says nothing CERA did could ever satisfy the opposition.

“I'm often confronted by political opponents that say nothing’s happening, you’re not moving quickly enough, but by the way you should be having a lot more public consultation…the two don't match”.

The Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill is set to be passed by the time CERA closes its doors, but many who submitted to the Local Government and Environment Committee were anxious that the powers the government was looking to retain will mean it isn’t the “step change” to a locally led rebuild it’s promised to be.

A report on those submissions is due out three days after the fifth anniversary. Maybe then we will have a clear insight into how things in Christchurch may play over the next five years?