Alex Swney: Rape of the city's heritage is no longer defensible

Alex Swney

I'm entering a stage in my life (perhaps it's a mid-life crisis) when I'm valuing experience at least as much as youthful enthusiasm. Why beat around the bush? Obviously I'm getting old.

In keeping with that inevitability, I'm also keeping a closer eye on heritage matters, perhaps out of a sense of guilt for those reckless 1980s in which I was such a willing participant.

Perhaps it's the belated acknowledgment that we are the sum of our collective efforts which finds me nowadays looking back with some shame at the cavalier way in which we have failed to respect and value our heritage.

I look out from my offices in a restored heritage building across Queen St. The 30-storey Stock Exchange Building now stands where the Hugh Wright's anchor store proudly stood for more than 100 years. Representing such energy at the time, fewer than 20 years on it is tired and tacky; even the stock exchange has moved out.

Bureaucracies are infamous for being thorough, but this no excuse for the recalcitrance in the Auckland City Council. I'm tired of the process, and even worse the continued defence of a process, that righteously excuses the past and continuing destruction.

I am appalled at the council's response to Justice Patrick Keane's landmark decision overturning the resource consent for an apartment block on the site of the St James Theatre. The council's suggestion that the effect of the proposed 36-level block above the St James would only be "minor" was nonsense, as was the claim that the decision had given the council more powers than it thought it had to control it. In truth, the judge merely directed the council to use the powers it has.

Even I know the Resource Management Act's fundamental purpose requires councils to "promote sustainable management" of our resources while "avoiding any adverse effect of an activity on the environment".

I am also appalled to find that council officers mark heritage assessments down to the lowest defensible threshold. Their track record reveals them less as guardians and more as barbarians.

Several examples lately demonstrate the parlous state of affairs at the council.

* The Edwardian home built at 42 St Stephens Ave for the Paykel family was scored Category B. But eight months later it still has not been scheduled and, consequently, remains under threat. What we have is recognition but no protection.

* The Fitzroy, central Auckland's oldest pub, was not on a heritage list. It has been there 150 years, so how come the council missed it? It would have been revealed by a cursory check of the council's 1908 Plan of Auckland, or its own library website.

The response of our heritage guardians? Complaints of a lack of resources. While less visible associations in history are not always widely known, in this case a $4 search at Land Information New Zealand would have revealed the association with Lion Breweries' founder, Richard Seccombe.

* The Art Deco Society is crawling all over the Jean Batten State Building. Design historian Douglas Lloyd-Jenkins first called for proper recognition of this building more than two years ago. The council's response? Its score remained steadfastly unchanged at 45 points - that is, of insufficient heritage value to warrant protection.

I know there are property-owners and developers who might be wary of a more robust conservation regime. I disagree, and promote this case in their interest. The district plan requires council to develop and introduce incentives that promote the conservation of heritage places - exemption from reserve contributions and rates relief, for example. There are many landlords who could and should be rewarded for preserving and enhancing the heritage value of their properties.

What we want is a situation recognising that where there is public good the public needs to participate, and a situation where owners value, and almost beg for, heritage buildings.

Instead what do we have? A reluctant heritage division scoring everything below the value attributed by the community. While heritage buildings remain unrecognised, they remain ineligible for incentives - and while they remain unprotected we will continue to see them bought in good faith for redevelopment, only to be held up by subsequent legal challenges.

What Aucklanders want is certainty - a robust, transparent and fair heritage policy that delivers a climate conducive to protecting heritage. The Resource Management Act was amended in 2003 to raise heritage values, and the regional and district plans both identify the carrots available to reward owners who enhance them.

We now have a new council voted in on a strong heritage platform and a mayor who concedes that heritage policies at the council are unsatisfactory. Where is Auckland headed?

* Alex Swney is the chief executive of Heart of the City, an inner-city business association. The views expressed are his own. He is responding to George Farrant, the heritage manager of Auckland City, who wrote that it was time to get real about the problems faced by local councils.