Heritage evaluation takes time
Heritage advocates are concerned the demolition of a historic house in Stuart St could set a precedent and lead to the destruction of more heritage buildings.
THE Dunedin City Council wants to protect 130 more heritage buildings.
A council spokesman said a large number of properties had been suggested for protection by members of the public or identified by staff as potentially meeting the criteria for protection.
Staff had completed heritage assessments on 130 of those and the council would consider adding them to its heritage schedule in the next plan change process, to be publicly notified later this year. Once notified, those buildings would have protection under the plan rules and any demolition would require resource consent.
Another 185 properties have been through an initial screening process and identified as potentially meeting the criteria for protection while 280 potential heritage buildings have not yet been screened or assessed. More buildings are expected to be added to the list over time.
Each assessment took a minimum of 12 hours to complete, and the number that could be done was limited by staff availability, he said.
The news comes as the council cops flak over the upcoming demolition of a 104-year-old house in Stuart St designed by celebrated architect Edmund Anscombe. The developers plan to replace it with an apartment complex.
A lime tree on the site is protected, but resource consent is not required for the home’s demolition because it is not on the council’s heritage schedule.
It had undergone a heritage assessment and had met the criteria for scheduling, but the resource consent application arrived before the council’s next plan-change process.
That meant there were ‘‘no effective options’’ open to the council to prevent the house being demolished.
Staff were reviewing the district plan to see how important historic buildings not yet on the heritage schedule could be better protected, he said. That work was likely to lead to a separate plan change next year.
At present, Dunedin has 784 scheduled heritage buildings and 19 heritage precincts that together contain over 925 ‘‘character-contributing’’ buildings, 50 heritage structures and 41 scheduled archaeological sites.
A resource consent is required to demolish any building or structure on the schedule, as well as for additions to the protected part of a building and for certain alterations, such as replacing windows.
Proposals only need to be publicly notified if the effects are assessed as being more than minor.
Anyone wanting to have their say on changes to district plan rules was welcome to participate in the upcoming plan changes, the council spokesman said. Any member of the public could also nominate buildings for protection, but the building would still need to be assessed and then considered as part of a plan change.
Asked if property owners had to agree to their buildings being on the schedule, the spokesman said the council was yet to confirm how it would engage with owners.
In the meantime, work is continuing on the council’s heritage action plan, which has 35 proposed actions. These range from investigating a change to the fee structure for heritage resource consents to increasing support for seismic strengthening.
Councillors also recently supported a Local Government New Zealand remit calling for law changes to address the issue of ‘‘demolition by neglect’’.
HERITAGE New Zealand Pouhere Taonga has also been criticised for not listing the house at 284 Stuart St. However, Otago-Southland manager Sarah Gallagher said inclusion on the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero did not protect a place unless it was also included in a relevant district plan.
Her office had a number of places — she did not want to say exactly how many — that had been nominated in the past 15 years and not yet assessed. The Stuart St property was not among them and under the organisation’s current strategic direction, it would ‘‘not rise to the top’’ either. That was because the current focus was on diversity, places of significance to Māori, and national historic landmarks.
Heritage assessment adviser Alison Breese said a detailed heritage assessment had to be completed before a place could be added to the list and she was the only person doing the work for Heritage New Zealand in Otago-Southland. An assessment typically took at least a year and she had multiple investigations on the go at any one time.
‘‘When Stuart St came up, people were like ‘Why can’t we all list it right now and just get it saved?’ That heritage assessment process from either of our organisations [Heritage New Zealand or the DCC] takes a long time.’’
A submission to the council from Heritage New Zealand said while the Stuart St house was not on the New Zealand Heritage List or the council’s district plan heritage schedule, it had significant heritage values.
Mrs Gallagher said the organisation would love to see the house adaptively reused and the streetscape maintained: ‘‘The house is very visible from three major streets in Dunedin and it’s opposite a really significant category 1 building, the former King Edward Technical College.’’
Although the home was built in the 1920s, there had previously been two small cottages on the site dating from 1861. That evidence of pre-1900 activity meant if the owners planned groundwork, they would need to apply to Heritage New Zealand for an archaeological authority.
An archaeological authority is a permit to modify or destroy an archaeological site and includes conditions, such as archaeological monitoring, recording and reporting.
Some buildings were demolished despite being on the New Zealand Heritage List, she added. One of the most recent was the category 2 Club Hotel in Bluff, which was levelled in April to clear space for the Bluff Oyster Festival. The owners said they could not afford to restore or strengthen the long-vacant building.
SOME people believe the New Zealand Heritage
List and council schedules should be consolidated, to avoid confusion where they do not overlap. Responding to that suggestion, Mrs Gallagher said heritage advisers employed by councils and Heritage New
Zealand sometimes worked closely together, but their organisations were governed by different legislation.
Other people believe Heritage New Zealand should buy buildings to ensure they are protected.
Mrs Gallagher said the organisation owned and cared for 45 heritage places nationwide. Those sites had been acquired through purchases, bequests, crown property transfers, or partnerships and were significant to the nation.
Property ownership went beyond the initial purchase, with ongoing maintenance and care essential to preserve the sites for the future.
‘‘This requires adequate resources and support, which needs to be planned and budgeted for.’’
Essentially, the New Zealand Heritage List was a tool to identify places of historic and cultural significance and to inform members of the public about them.
It included category 1 and 2 historic places, historic areas, wāhi tūpuna (places of ancestral significance for Māori) and wāhi tapu (places and areas that are sacred to Māori).
The decision on a place being listed or not was made by either the Heritage New Zealand board or the Māori Heritage Council.
Technically, places could be listed without the owners’ agreement but the organisation much preferred to work with ‘‘willing people’’.
Many people assumed that if their properties were listed, the buildings could not be changed in any way, but that was not the case, Mrs Breese said. The aim was to balance heritage features and modern living needs — with incentive funds and free advice available to help owners.
While many of the 5830 entries on the list nationwide were grand old homes, there were also lime kilns, public toilets, phone boxes, bridges and harbour walls — at
37km long, the Otago Harbour seawalls were the longest category 1 historic place in the country, Mrs Gallagher said.
The organisation wanted to include places that represented different groups of people, types of architecture and functions because at present the list was ‘‘very European and colonial’’. But achieving diversity would challenge people’s understanding of what heritage was. Recently, some people had balked at the organisation listing Futura House, a fibreglass, flying saucer-like building from the 1970s.
‘‘It’s about realising the list is an evolving thing and our architecture from 50 years ago is equally important to recognise and provide information about as some of the stately homes [are].’’
The pair encouraged anyone who had concerns about a building to check if it was on the Heritage New Zealand List or the Dunedin City Council’s heritage schedule. They also wanted the public to know that anyone could suggest a place for the list.
‘‘People need to know they can go and speak at council meetings. If people want to advocate for heritage, it’s in their power to do that and if they want to nominate places for the list, they can do that as well.’’
The Dunedin City Council’s list of scheduled and character-contributing buildings can be found at https://www.dunedin.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_ file/0010/1057276/Full-file-compressed.pdf (the list is under section F — Appendices and begins on page 1574).
The Heritage New Zealand List is at www.heritage.org. nz/ places
When Stuart St came up, people were like ‘Why can’t we all list it right now and just get it saved?’