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Heritage groups have begun a campaign to stop demolition controls being overturned in character suburbs throughout Auckland City.
The campaign is a response to plans by Auckland City Council to exclude thousands of homes from a special heritage zone that provides protection from demolition.
Parnell Heritage secretary Kate Tolmie-Bowden said Aucklanders needed to say "no" to the latest assault on the city's character suburbs.
"We just can't afford to recklessly lose more of our heritage," she said.
At least 12 groups, including Remuera Heritage, the Avondale and Waterview Historical Society, the Grafton Residents Association, the James Wallace Arts Trust and the Otahuhu Historical Society, have joined the campaign.
Heritage protection of pre-1940 homes will virtually cease in some character suburbs and demolition will be possible in large areas of other suburbs under proposals drawn up by council officers.
The council has written to 13,000 households with details of a compromise aimed at settling a legal row with three Remuera lawyers, Derek Nolan, Brian Latimour and Tim Burcher.
The three oppose new rules aimed at protecting older homes in the Residential 2 zone, covering affluent leafy suburbs such as Remuera, Epsom, Parnell, Herne Bay, Mt Albert, St Heliers and Kohimarama.
The lawyers have threatened to also contest the rules in the residential 1 zone - applying to old working-class suburbs such as Ponsonby and Grey Lynn - if they do not get their way with the residential 2 zone, says a confidential council report obtained by the Herald.
Mrs Tolmie-Bowden was concerned that the council appeared to be buckling in the face of pressure from a small number of opponents.
She was nonplussed at the council criteria for selecting houses worthy of heritage protection and those which could be demolished without obtaining resource consent.
"Needing a resource consent doesn't mean you can never remove or alter an old house. It just means you need to justify doing so," she said.
The council has decided that houses worthy of heritage protection must meet a "garden suburb" test, namely there must be at least 60 per cent of pre-1940 homes visible to the street, or a minimum of three "distinctly original" homes in a group.
Lower Laurie Ave in Parnell is mostly comprised of arts and craft exhibition show homes built in 1930 and 1931, but council officers say they "display little or no remaining character" and can be demolished.
Laurie Ave resident Fiona Missingham was surprised to receive a letter from the council saying protection was being lifted on her 1930s arts and craft home.
"It's quite unbelievable," she said.
The campaign is gaining momentum in Mt Albert, where residents have banded together to safeguard a strip of homes on Mt Albert Rd.
Richie Afford is appalled the council would drop protection for the 1865 cottage he has lived in for 50 years.
"It's going to result in a general degradation of the local environment."
* The proposed map for the Residential 2 zone can be seen on the web at: www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/isthmusplan. It is open for comments and submissions until August 7.
