KEY POINTS:
The Auckland District Health Board has been shamed into postponing its destruction of historic Building 5 at Green Lane Hospital.
But given the scorched-earth wrecking of old buildings at the main city hospital site in recent years, board chairman Pat Snedden's claim that the board was "not blind to heritage" is rather hard to take seriously.
Particularly when all he offers on Building 5 is a "middle way".
In this city, middle way conjures up the nightmare of the Jean Batten ruins, a building allegedly saved by master of the middle way, former mayor Dick Hubbard. It means the film-set facadism of the former Grand Hotel and the old Queen St BNZ head office. There's no middle way when it comes to protecting a heritage building. Either you save it or you don't.
What we need is a pledge from the board to honour the duty of care it has for the city's heritage buildings and a simple promise not to knock it down.
Its responsibility as a property owner is clearly outlined in the 2003 amendments to the Resource Management Act saying "the protection of historic heritage from inappropriate subdivision, use and development" is "a matter of national importance".
Instead, we have Mr Snedden turning up to the city council and saying, "I am prepared to suggest we have a pause in this process for a short period where we give the opportunity for a couple of years where people can look at alternative uses of that building."
He says if someone comes up with a commercial proposition to reactivate the life of the building the board would look at it.
A more convincing sign of a change of heart would have been for Mr Snedden to surrender the demolition permit the board obtained just last month, which is currently the subject of an appeal to the Environment Court. If the board's conversion to heritage is genuine, why waste public money defending a permit they now tell us they don't want to use?
There's a big question mark hanging over the permit's validity anyway. It was issued, at least partly, on evidence that Building 5 was about to be removed from an Auckland City Council list of proposed scheduled buildings, so it wasn't worthy of protection. The independent commissioners awarding the permit noted this demotion. But last week, against officers' advice, councillors voted to leave it on the list.
Eventually the permit's validity will be argued in court, but how many hip replacements will that cost to defend? And all for nothing if the health board is genuine in its new love of heritage.
Helen Geary, who has filed the appeal, says the education and justice sector get no specific public funding to care for their old buildings, but don't shirk their heritage responsibilities. State schools such as Auckland Grammar, Mt Albert Grammar and Auckland Girls all spend their property budget maintaining heritage buildings, when they could spend it on education. "What is substantially different about health?"
An official 1919 history of Auckland Hospital's building and endowments shows Mr Snedden is hardly unique when it comes to funding problems. But instead of crying poor, his predecessors came up with imaginative solutions. The Costley Home for the Aged Poor, of which Building 5 was the "male infirmary ward", had "an extensive vegetable garden" serving inmates.
But pride of place were the piggeries which "were of more than local fame for the breeding of well-bred swine" and "brought into the Board a revenue of about £700 a year." This was no mean sum, given the main Costley home - still standing - cost only 10 times that annual profit to build.
Sadly, this bounty was too good to last. The 1919 historian noted, "As the existence of the piggeries was thought to be responsible for the fly nuisance in the institution, this particular industry has been dispensed with."
There's no mention of how the authorities made up the resultant substantial shortfall in income. But you can be sure the solution wasn't to bowl a building and replace it with a car park.
