KEY POINTS:
Having let century-old Building 5 at Greenlane Hospital gradually deteriorate, the Auckland District Health Board is now saying it's not its job to breath new life into it. "District health boards are funded only to improve the health of their communities, not to restore buildings," said Bruce Northey, ADHB general counsel in a letter to the Herald.
It's a variant on the theme used by every developer to justify the destruction of the latest victim of Auckland's fast dwindling collection of heritage landmarks.
Yet surely the health of the community is not just about pills and laser surgery. It also involves ensuring we live in a pleasant cultural environment. One that reflects our past as well as providing for any health bureaucrat's "state-of-the-art" future.
If the publicly-owned health board, Auckland's biggest business, hasn't the wit and imagination to come up with a new use for this building, then what hope is there for the future of those heritage structures in private hands? Mr Northey claims that critics of the planned destruction make "no mention of long-term planning for state-of-the-art hospital facilities". Yet the plans presented to recent public hearings talk only of knocking Building 5 over to make way for 30-odd carparks.
Despite what the board says, it does have a duty of care for the heritage it has inherited. The Resource Management Act makes it the obligation of all citizens, health boards included, to take responsibility for "the sustainable management of natural and physical resources". Indeed in August 2003, the act was beefed up to add the protection of old buildings to its list of "matters of national importance" to be taken into account while managing and protecting our resources. From that date, "the protection of historic heritage from inappropriate subdivision, use and development" became a "matter of national importance".
The board's website suggests its masterplan for Greenlane has not been revised as a result of this amendment. It proclaims "the Greenlane site is large and spacious. There will be 7165 sq m of carparking with additional space for on-grade parking". If the health bureaucrats can't think of a new use for the building, then they should canvas the Greenlane staff. They were full of suggestions when I asked. Rent it out to private specialists or make it the home for district nurses. Put in the Maori health unit, whose present base is to be demolished.
Across town, Auckland City seems to have wiped its hands of this latest threat to its past. In a review of heritage policy recommending no increase in funding being presented at today's city council budget setting meeting, group manager of city planning Penny Pirrit proudly declares in her introduction that "no scheduled item has been compromised or lost, apart [inevitably] from a handful of trees lost to storm damage and a few to malicious poisoning".
Of course you can claim such a perfect record, if endangered or destroyed buildings are left off the protection list to begin with. The Jean Batten ruin is one recent example that never made the schedule. So is the imperilled Fitzroy Hotel, Wakefield St. Even after it was "rediscovered" by heritage campaigner Allan Matson, the council schedulers initially gave it a failed mark of 47 points. Then, under pressure, they upped it to 72 - three off the top score!
Building 5 was another to be missed by the council's heritage police until the health board's bulldozers were being readied. Initially it was evaluated as an execution-delaying 53 points. Mysteriously this mark was downgraded some months later to a fail mark of 49. If the bulldozers get the green light, the council heritage guardians will still be able to claim a perfect record. Ditto, the Fitzroy.
We all know the board is strapped for cash. So is the council's heritage team. But aren't we all? The issue here is not money, it's about bowling a loved old building and replacing it with an asphalt carpark. Every Aucklander I know is sick of the wanton destruction of our past. If the 2003 amendment to the RMA is any guide, so are a majority of Parliamentarians. The health bureaucrats need to think again.
