Gisborne District Council wants power to act on derelict buildings

The former Masonic Hotel is one of many buildings in the CBD criticised for its derelict nature. The Gisborne District Council want legal power to force owners to take action. Photo / Paul Rickard

Concern over the number of derelict buildings in the central city has led to the Gisborne District Council seeking legal power to remediate the decaying condition of unoccupied derelict buildings.

Sitting as Sustainable Tairāwhiti, councillors decided to send a remit through the Local Government New Zealand process seeking:

That LGNZ advocates to Government:

1. For legislative change enabling local authorities to remediate the decaying condition of unoccupied derelict buildings that have deteriorated to a state where they negatively impact the amenity of the surrounding area.
2. To incentivise repurposing vacant buildings to meet region-specific needs, for example, accommodation conversion.

Mayor Rehette Stoltz said that under present rules the council could act only if a building “is nearly falling apart”.

The remit needed the support of five councils before it was submitted LGNZ for consideration.

The mayor said she would present the remit to Group 3 of the councils consisting of Hastings District Council, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, Horizons Regional Council (Manawatū-Whanganui), Horowhenua District Council, Manawatū District Council, Napier City Council, and also Gisborne District Council.

Stoltz said the derelict building issue was not unique to Gisborne.

Councillor Josh Wharehinga said action needed to be taken.

“We have so many derelict and borderline derelict buildings in our CBD.”

The council had held discussions with local owners invested in the district.

But some owners did not live in Gisborne and “just don’t care”.

Legislative change was needed to ”make them do right on behalf of our community”.

Councillor Larry Foster said he had been a strong advocate for such a move.

The council needed a tool from the Government to resolve the issue.

The remit did not refer to the council’s “predicament” of aforeign owner of several buildings in the CBD who was serving a jail sentence.

“Our CBD is in such a bad state at the moment,” Foster said.

Councillor Andy Cranston asked what the council would expect of an owner needing to spend a lot of dollars on a building when there was an opportunity to demolish and rebuild.

Would the council “hold on to the building”?

It could be comparable to the Peel Street Toilets and having buildings with no function.

Cranston also compared Gisborne’s situation to Christchurch where owners of buildings with heritage value faced a balance between maintaining heritage values for purposeful buildings and demolishing and rebuilding.

He was for maintaining heritage values “but there’s a line that’s very hard to determine of maintaining the building at an exorbitant cost, at the owner’s expense”.