Heritage plan 'puts historic places at risk'

TRAVEL TALES: This Morningside railway house was also deemed to tell an important part of Whangarei's history. PHOTO/MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM

A "narrow" approach to protecting Whangarei's historic places is putting city treasures at risk, one district councillor says.

Whangarei's Old Railway Station, the Hukerenui Hotel, the former Bank St Butter Factory and two former railway houses in Morningside are five buildings most recently deemed in need of protection, as Whangarei District Council considers its Built Heritage Plan Change for the first time since 2007.

Inclusion on the list placed restrictions on the modifications that could be done to the buildings, including avoiding any changes to facades and retaining traditional character features including materials and colours.

But councillor Tricia Cutforth is concerned about the approach WDC had adopted to its built heritage - saying there needed to be scope for identifying areas of interest and buildings not on a formal "list".

In May 2013, the former elected council adopted a "minimalist" approach to built heritage. This meant WDC had not undertaken a full evaluation of buildings that could be added to its protected list and had instead taken its cues from Heritage New Zealand's Historic Places List.

"I don't want to be in a council where we demolish buildings and then put up a sign saying 'there used to be a building here'," Cr Cutforth said.

She also raised the issue of including Maori sites, such as pa and marae, which were dealt with in a separate section of the district plan. She wanted the Built Heritage plan to be considered alongside Plan Change 100 - Sites of Significance for Maori. "Otherwise we're going to end up with two policies that don't align, and don't speak to each other," she said.

Cr Cutforth said protecting built heritage was "not about setting a whole a lot of restrictions around what you can't do. It's about how people can continue to do developments, but they're sympathetic."

WDC policy and monitoring manager Paul Waanders said halting the consideration of the plan change would put the council behind schedule on its District Plan review cycle.

Heritage New Zealand northern area manager Bill Edwards said a focus on buildings was quite a "narrow focus", though he could not yet comment specifically on the WDC plan change as he had only recently started looking at it. "I think that heritage is not about individual places but groups of things ... about stories and how they connect us. Think about the story of [Mount] Manaia or Parihaka ... or the upper Hatea River. All those things mean it's a much wider story than just a pretty villa."