Brian Rudman: Decent design? This isn't the Auckland we know

If you live long enough, you get to see everything. Even property developers and conservative politicians cheering on Auckland City's revolutionary plans to police the design of the built environment.

This just a few days after Mayor Dick Hubbard and environment committee chair Christine Caughey - neither of them screaming lefties - announced the city would from now on keep a very close eye on the renovation plans of those of us living in "some 16,300 character homes".

"What we're proposing sends the strongest of signals that we are serious about protecting our heritage and neighbourhoods," said the mayor. And just to emphasise that he meant business, his announcement came with a 47-page design guideline, describing everything from approved styles of replacement picket fencing to the appropriate paint colours.

Not that I'm against any of the above. It's just that the past few days have been like waking up in a parallel universe.

For decades, city hall's litany was that protecting our built heritage - a few special streets and buildings excepted - was either too hard or not possible. Ditto for telling a property mogul his planned building was an eyesore waiting to happen.

I remember the first wave of Ponsonby gentrifiers back in the 1970s, trying to interest the city council in heritage protection of the area with their Ponsonby Plan. Local community politicians have hammered away at it for years - people like Bruce Hucker, Penny Sefuiva, the indefatigable Cathy Hawley and many, many others.

Finally, a year ago, the last council agreed to form a working party to find a way of saving the inner western suburbs' character.

Last Friday's announcement was the fruit of those decades of struggle. What had, until now, been declared either too hard or an infringement of an owner's property rights was suddenly not only possible, but very fashionable as well.

Fashionable and, let's not forget, at last politically possible. Though Mayor Hubbard and Ms Caughey - both newcomers from last October's election - fronted Friday's meeting, the change was driven by the majority City Vision-Labour council.

I call the changes revolutionary, but that's only in the context of Auckland City's history of conservative governance. Across in Devonport they've long been actively protecting their old houses. Not always successfully, for sure, but with a will until now missing on the other side of the harbour.

Similarly with the new urban design regime announced yesterday.

Last year, when I backed the Committee of Auckland's call for Auckland to adopt the model of guided urban design introduced in Edinburgh City, I quietly consigned it to my list of noble but lost causes.

A big brother who championed good design? A regime which said "no" if a building didn't meet the city's design and quality requirements for that site? A regime that fast-tracked meritorious proposals and let potential eyesores rot at the bottom of the list? Who was I kidding. Under Mayor John Banks and the traditional conservative Citrat majority, was this ever going to happen?

But thanks to the Eastern Highway of blessed memory and last October's rout of those who supported it, this "lost" cause has suddenly become possible. Better than that, developer and politician alike want to claim it as their own.

However, to me the true test of its acceptability is when I see the Auckland City bureaucracy embrace it as well. They have a way to go. Just a few weeks ago the workmen turned up in my street to replace the driveways further down the road.

I'm in a conservation area where it's so strict I suspect you're supposed to check whether marigolds were fashionable in 1910 before you risk planting them in your front garden. But despite this heritage status we long ago lost the fight to retain the traditional red scoria pavements, in favour of black asphalt.

This summer the council showed its regard for conservation by giving the bottom half of the street shiny white concrete driveways. And very smart they look. As long, that is, as you don't look at the black asphalt footpaths on either side, or the heritage picket fences.

When they stop concreting, I'll know the revolution has finally hit home.