How do we save our heritage?

Old masonry buildings in Manchester St, Christchurch, after the big quake. Photo/File

We have a beautiful, city that many people admire. The cute old buildings just blow them away. Perhaps they don't realise it yet, but they would like to come and see it - to stay here - to buy our stuff - to give us money.

But there's a problem. Our buildings that are so attractive are the same ones that make up 11 per cent of New Zealand's at-risk earthquake prone heritage buildings. That's right - of all the at-risk heritage buildings in the country, little old us have got 11 per cent of them.

The other problem is that many don't realise our value because of our abysmal image, but that's something we can fix. So here's the rub - it seems to be a race between fixing up our buildings and fixing up our image. We would have no image worth fixing without the buildings - and it wouldn't be worthwhile fixing the buildings if we can't fix our image, because no one will come. The Wheeler study suggests that our local economy could be boosted by up to $40 million per year due to our heritage buildings.

One answer could be to bowl over all of those old buildings and put up some nice new, glass-fronted commercial tower blocks. To make it look like we really cared, we could etch pictures of whales, kokako and Che Guevara into the glass walls and use hemp-based wallpapers. Now, wouldn't that be nice? Yeah, right - while it may be cheaper, we need to be able to think past what the balance sheet Johnnies may tell us. It will be crucial to keep at least the look of the old buildings.

Maybe Joni Mitchell had a point: "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot." The time to build buildings in the style of our ones was 1928 but at least the facades remain. The trick will be to retain the look of the place, yet keep it from falling over - affordably. And we can't argue that our buildings are not an earthquake risk. So much of Christchurch had the same type of unreinforced masonry buildings that make up Victoria Ave. The facades of our buildings have the same decayed mortar that you could flush out with a garden hose and which did so much damage - the bricks are often just sitting there piled one on the other. Fortunately, our verandas are again beginning to sprout support poles.

We will need to be inventive to get past the other statutory hurdles to rebuilding. If the owners are forced to put "disabled" toilets into their refurbished buildings and elevators to their first floors, it could turn a relatively simple exercise into a major expense that could kill the town. Council officers can choose to be part of the solution or part of the problem. Rather than killing the golden goose, perhaps building owners and the council could get together and agree to establish one or two "disabled" toilets per block. As for elevators, perhaps this helps to explain why 80 per cent of first floors in the Avenue are empty? We need to see this circumstance as an opportunity and not a problem, to bring the town to life - but first we each need to realise if you are not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Chris Northover is a former Wanganui lawyer who has worked in the fields of aviation, tourism, health and the environment - as well as designing electric cars and importing photo-voltaic panels.