Airspace over 18 historic Auckland buildings has been transferred to other properties in the city.
Robert McClean of the Historic Places Trust presented a paper to a national one-day workshop on heritage incentives in Parnell on Monday.
He explained various incentive schemes for compensating owners of historic buildings and said
Auckland was the only New Zealand city with an active transferable development rights system.
That allows developers to buy floorspace or air rights from a heritage building which is often low-rise and cannot be developed. They then apply to transfer that benefit to another site.
That compensates or rewards the owner of the historic building and allows a developer to build more than might usually be allowed under the district plan.
McClean said that since the early 1990s, demand for historic building airspace had declined and the amount of money being paid had dropped.
The heritage benefit which some years ago was worth about $230 per square metre to $350 per square metre was found in 2004 to be worth only about $50 per square metre. The price of the heritage floor space bonus had also dropped.
"A key issue is that the heritage floor space bonus is one of 14 bonus elements in the district plan. This means the heritage floorspace bonus must compete with other bonus elements such as [developing] accommodation, works of art, light, outlook and landscaping," McClean said.
Less development work was taking place, another factor which meant less demand for the scheme.
In 2001, owners of the historic St Matthew-in-the-City sold bonus points for $107 per square metre to the Auckland Drape Company site for an 11-level apartment tower. But in 2004, the church owners got only $60 per square metre for the bonus floorspace points sold for development of extra space in the PricewaterhouseCoopers tower on Quay St.
McLean listed 27 sites which had received bonus floorspace points from the historic buildings.
These included the PricewaterhouseCoopers tower, 12 High St, which received a floorspace bonus of 23,271sq m, 73-83 Customs St West, which got 25,000sq m, 42 Shortland St, which got 9404sq m and 151 Queen St, 1541sq m.
Sydney had a heritage floor space credit scheme. But McClean noted said transferable development rights schemes had been tried in urban areas in New Zealand with limited success.
SAVING OUR PAST
Some of the 18 Auckland buildings allocated heritage floorspace.
* Auckland Town Hall 41,484sq m
* Chief Post Office, Queen Elizabeth II Square31,882sq m
* St Matthew-in-the-City28,229sq m
* Auckland Electric Power Board Building, 187-189 Queen St11,406sq m
* St Pauls Church, Symonds St 10,000sq m
* Chancery Chambers, 2-8 Chancery St9040sq m
* Northern Club, 19 Princes St8677sq m
* Australis House, 36-38 Customs St East8384sq m
* A. H. Nathan Building, 40-42 Customs St East8355sq m
* Civic Theatre, Queen St6278sq m
* Vulcan Building, 118-124 Queen St4250sq m
* Bluestone Store, Durham Lane3035sq m
Airspace over 18 historic Auckland buildings has been transferred to other properties in the city.
Robert McClean of the Historic Places Trust presented a paper to a national one-day workshop on heritage incentives in Parnell on Monday.
He explained various incentive schemes for compensating owners of historic buildings and said
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