Demolition a mistake, says council

The 100-year-old house in Herne Bay that was demolished after an official got its age wrong.

The Auckland City Council admits it was wrong to allow the demolition of a 100-year-old house in Herne Bay this month.

Planning general manager John Duthie yesterday acknowledged that the core of the house in Marine Parade was probably built before 1940, which qualified it for protection under sweeping changes in heritage suburbs like Herne Bay.

But he refused to blame the council officer who approved the demolition, Mike Watson, for the mistake, saying Mr Watson came to a judgment based on council procedures.

Mr Watson is an architectural specialist whose job it is to protect 16,300 homes in residential 1 and 2 heritage suburbs.

After visiting the property twice and relying on the word of a house wrecker that it was built after 1950, Mr Watson concluded that "no resource consent is required for the demolition of this property".

Mr Duthie said the present procedures allowed only for an exterior check of buildings. What Mr Watson saw was aluminium joinery, pine weatherboards and a concrete-block base consistent with what the developer, Chris Cook, believed was the age of the building.

Mr Duthie said the council would review its residential character zone consent procedures.

One change could be upgrading aerial photos held by the council from the 1940s.

The photographs, which showed a smaller house at 29 Marine Parade than the one demolished, were not used by the council to determine the age of the property.

Herne Bay resident Ted Leng, who woke up to find the bulldozers demolishing the house, said that if the council was serious about heritage it had to do more than just stand on the side of the road and look at a house.

Joanna White, whose parents owned the house at Marine Parade for 25 years until 2002, said it was obvious from the outside that it was built before 1940.

She said the council's admission now was a whitewash to cover its failings.