KEY POINTS:
When the Auckland Sky Tower rose 328m above the Hobson St ridge it so dwarfed the inner-city high rises that it redefined the skyline. Nobody imagined that within 10 years its position would be challenged by a conventional building. The 67-level Elliott Tower proposed for a long-vacant site in Victoria St, not far from the Sky Tower, will rise to almost the level of its viewing decks. And SkyCity, owners of the tower and casino, is doing its utmost to stop it.
Citing possible interference with radio, television and cellphone transmissions from the Sky Tower, the company lodged objections with the Auckland City Council and, having failed to stop there, has appealed to the Environment Court.
It is a case with ominous implications if it succeeds. It would mean that the magnificent structure that raised the sights of the city 10 years ago now threatens to constrain its growth.
Every city's tallest building raises the bar for high-rise development and thereby carries the seed of its own destruction, or at least invites challenges. The Elliott Tower, designed as an apartment block about three times as high as surrounding commercial and residential towers, would leave not much more than the spindle of the Sky Tower in air of its own. The column would lose its ascendancy and the visual appeal of the whole structure considerably reduced.
But is that reason to force the Elliott Tower developer, the Korean Dae Ju Housing, to scale down its intended edifice? The council's hearing commissioners were not convinced. Sky Tower's "iconic status" might suffer as the objectors feared but the council design panel pointed out that the tower does not have protected status.
This might strike SkyCity as somewhat ironic, remembering that the casino tower had to relinquish its originally preferred site, upper Symonds St, because it would have challenged site lines to Mt Eden and diminished the prominence of that "iconic" cone.
But man-made features of the landscape cannot be protected in the same way. If they were, the Auckland skyline might never have managed to exceed the height of the highest cathedral spire.
SkyCity and its co-appellants, lawyers DLA Phillips Fox, seem to have pitched their case to the Environment Court less on iconic qualities than the practical effects on the transmission facilities installed in the tower 10 years ago. They say the Elliott Tower would interfere with telecommunications and broadcast signals from the upper section of the Sky Tower, requiring some repeaters to be installed and antennas relocated.
The difficulty with this objection is that until 10 years ago Auckland coped quite adequately with radio and television signals from other high points around the city. In fact, the difficulties of car radio reception around the inner city may raise questions whether the Sky Tower is really the ideal transmission centre.
Its appeal also cites the mundane, not to say down-to-earth, resource consent arguments that Elliott Tower apartment residents might complain at Sky Tower's tourists looking directly in their windows.
Sky Tower has made itself a splendid feature of Auckland, contributing to the city's life with its decorative lighting and fireworks as well as being the central beacon, visible from many outlying parts of the region, a common reference point for sprawling suburbs.
But in time it will be overtaken. Elliott Tower will not be the only neighbour to rise nearly as high. In another 10 years the casino's giant spire might be struggling as much as that of any cathedral to keep above the rooftops.
