KEY POINTS:
To have survived intact for more than 150 years in this uncaring town, the former Fitzroy Hotel in downtown Wakefield St has had more than its share of good fortune. Now Lady Luck has struck again, riding in on the back of the property market collapse.
Southern Cross Building Society, financiers for developer Lily Zhong, have pulled the plug on her controversial project to mutilate the old building by driving pillars for an apartment tower through its heart, and put the property up for mortgagee sale. After a four year stint on death row, this is not necessarily a reprieve. But it is at least a stay of execution, giving Auckland City a last chance to redeem its earlier failure to protect Auckland's oldest hotel building.
Earlier this year, planning commissioners upheld a resource consent permitting Ms Zhong to build a 50m high tower of apartments, many of them the notorious "shoe-box" size the city now bans, plunging through the roof of the iconic old pub despite a long battle by heritage campaigner Allan Matson for a more sympathetic and civilised solution. Mr Matson had pushed for a win-win situation, which would have enabled the apartments to be built and the old building to remain unmolested. Backing him was architect Andrew Patterson who said an apartment tower of similar capacity could be built to the back of the old building, leaving it unaltered.
Now that Zhong's monstrous idea has collapsed, Auckland City has several options. One is to turn its back again on this important relic of the city's history, leaving it to the vagaries of the property market. But with Mayor John Banks' recent support for saving places like Building 5 at Green Lane Hospital, that would hardly reflect the political, if not managerial, leadership at the city hall.
The simplest move would be for the council to slap a heritage order on the property and in effect, dare the vendors to object. Such an order gives the council veto powers over any proposed development unless the owner can prove in the Environment Court, that the order prevents them from making economic use of the site. Andrew Patterson's proposal shows that's not necessarily true.
Another option would be for the council to go to the vendor, Southern Cross, and work with them to get the Patterson proposal to the design stage where it could be used to seek a variation to the existing resource consent. Planning experts tell me that this would be considered a "minor" variation and could be granted on a non-notified basis. Given it's a better plan all round, and less prone to public outrage and challenge, it might well add to the marketability of the site.
Alternatively, the council could front up with the $2 million or so that's being talked about, and buy the site itself. It could then apply to rescind the resource consent or vary it. Then it could ensure suitable heritage protection was in place then sell, or lease it on a long term basis, to a sympathetic developer.
The Fitzroy saga has highlighted the gaping weaknesses in Auckland City's heritage protection regime. In October 2003, when the owner applied to demolish the place, the council had no record of any heritage value. As it wasn't scheduled, the council was caught on the back foot. In March 2004, Mr Matson requested a plan change scheduling the building a Category A (75 points and over) protected building. Heritage officials promptly scored it a lowly 47 points and opposed the application. After Matson appealed, the bureaucrats grumpily upped their score to 57 and agreed to schedule it a B category.
In September, the Historic Places Trust lumbered on to the scene declaring it a Category 1 building on their scale, and assessing it worth 103 points on the city council's scale.
Defiantly, in November, the council bureaucrats edged their score reluctantly up to 72 points, and said it was still only Category B according to them. Subsequently, one of the city's heritage advisers, architect Jeremy Salmond, rated it 117. I only catalogue this to highlight the arbitrary nature of heritage protection in Auckland City.
If a building has nine lives, the Fitzroy has just used up number 13. Our leaders declare their commitment to protect heritage. Now they can prove it.
