Court rules today on St Heliers cottages

Protesters outside the 1930s art deco buildings due to be demolished in Turua St, St Heliers in December. Photo / Paul Estcourt

The Environment Court will decide today the fate of St Heliers cottages due for demolition.

Save Our St Heliers Society yesterday put its case for an enforcement order requiring developer Ancona Properties to stop destruction of six houses at 8-16 and 20 Turua St. With only two hours left before last week's interim order was to expire, Judge Laurie Newhook said he would extend it to allow a considered rather than rushed oral decision.

Public interest in the case suggested he should deliver his verdict in open court after "careful assembly of materials and my thoughts".

The group's lawyer, David Kirkpatrick, said an enforcement order was sought for an indeterminate period as a "holding action".

Last week's court order stopped a demolition digger as it ripped into the first of a trio of 1930s Spanish mission-style houses.

The society said the loss of the buildings to make way for a fully consented $11 million office, apartment and carpark project would have an adverse effect on the environment.

Mr Kirkpatrick said that in granting consent last year, the council did not expressly recognise the heritage value despite there being evidence of it at the time. This should have been available to the planning commissioner who granted the consent.

The houses were removed from the identified "character" buildings in the St Heliers town centre plan, which was added to a District Plan change.

A planner reporting to the commissioner had wrongly assumed that this meant that these buildings no longer warranted consideration as heritage buildings.

The lawyer for the developer, Richard Brabant, said the eleventh-hour application was at the tail end of a lengthy process for the plan change and resource consenting. He called for refusal of any enforcement order.

He said no satisfactory evidence backed a finding that the buildings had significant heritage values. The company had valid consent to demolish and rebuild as a controlled activity.

The town centre plan's revised rules meant the council could not refuse consent and could impose only limited conditions except for No 20, which was to make way for a carpark.

Mr Brabant said it was in the public interest for people to have a say on heritage.

But it was also in the public interest that the integrity of that process and the authority to carry out authorised works should prevail.