City finds place to park fresh air

Moving around slices of air above historic buildings is becoming big business in Auckland.

Development air rights above three historic Britomart buildings near the waterfront are being shifted across town to hover above two public car parking buildings.

But the fresh air is only being temporarily "parked" until Auckland City decides where to move it next.

The council wants to shift the air rights from above the heritage buildings into a temporary space until it can decide where they will go permanently.

The air rights - officially called heritage floor space bonus entitlements - came from above the former Chief Post Office building at 12 Queen St, the A.H. Nathan building at 40-42 Customs St East and Australis House at 36-38 Customs St East.

The council grants the entitlements to owners of historic buildings to compensate them for not being able to build above the preserved buildings.

Building owners get the entitlements or points, which they can then sell, moving the air from above the historic building to another site which is usually being developed.

The latest shift in air space was prompted by the transfer of Britomart land to developer Bluewater Consortium, which is converting a 5ha downtown area into a $350 million office, residential and shopping precinct.

Auckland City's planning fixtures committee was told of the proposal to shift 48,071sq m of development entitlements to above the Downtown Carpark site at 73-83 Customs St West and over the Victoria St East carpark at 52-66 High St.

"The transfer of heritage floor space is standard practice within the central area and the consent required is only to formalise the process," the committee heard.

"The intention to transfer the entitlements to the recipient sites is simply to park these."

City planning manager John Duthie said the movement of air rights or transferable development rights was standard practice in Auckland.

"St Matthew-in-the-City benefited from this," he said, citing the case in 2001 where property developer AMP NZ Office Trust agreed to buy the airspace above the historic church, giving it the right to build three levels in its 34-storey waterfront tower.

Other historic buildings which have saleable air rights above them are Landmark House (formerly the Auckland Electric Power Board building) on the corner of Queen St and Durham St West, the old Auckland Town Hall in Queen St, St Andrew's Church in Symonds St, the Northern Club in Princes St, the Vulcan Building on the corner of Vulcan Lane and Queen St, and the Civic Theatre complex on Queen St.