Brian Rudman: From impossible to 'win win', but is it really conservation?

The only touches missing from the artist's impression of Bank of New Zealand's proposed Queen St headquarters are a few flying saucers ducking around the towers. The stretched perspective and the unworldly golden hue took me back to the old Dan Dare comic strips of my youth.

BNZ officials admit to a certain artistic licence creeping in, but prefer to call the illustrator's style "heroic", which I guess was appropriate.

After all, nestling alongside the futuristic glass tower is the scrubbed-up face of Jean Batten Building, which was the reason Auckland City Mayor Dick Hubbard and representatives of the BNZ, Multiplex Properties and Historic Places Trust had lured the media to Wednesday's meeting.

We were there to hear that JBB had been saved and meet the heroes responsible.

It was a remarkable moment. Just over a year before, the bankers had said incorporating the old art deco-influenced building into the project was impossible. It and the neighbouring BNZ building were to be demolished and replaced by an 11-storey glass tower bounded by Queen St, Fort St, Shortland St and Jean Batten Place,

After a flurry of protest, Dick Hubbard cobbled together a moratorium in which the developers and the council both agreed to freeze action while they tried to come up with a revised scheme that could incorporate the threatened building.

On Wednesday, we were presented with a "win win" situation. But was it really? Or are we getting a continuation of the old facadism which passed as Auckland's sorry excuse for conservation in the not-so-distant past.

In reality, the changes to JBB will be significant. The exterior will remain, but at ground level, the existing windows - some at head height from the outside - will be cut down to pavement level to accommodate the display needs of retailers. The interior ground floor will be lowered a metre or so to street level. The deco stairways will be removed. So will the distinctively decorated lifts.

The interior will only be retained for the first 5m in from the outside wall to the first line of interior pillars. At that point, the floor plates will seamlessly join the floors of the tower block.

The explanation for the removal of stairs and lifts is simple. The shops will only occupy the ground floor. The six floors of the old Jean Batten Building above will be accessed from Queen St. Therefore, there is no need for the existing vertical flow from ground level. But is this conservation?

Personally, these are compromises I can just about live with.

As for that toothless old tiger the Historic Places Trust, it seems to have rolled over with little more than a growl or two.

Then there's the Auckland City Council, whose failure to list this building in the past is the key reason we're forced into the present compromise. Not only had the city not seen fit to give this building any official protection, it had also granted BNZ a demolition permit without blinking an eyelid.

The question now remaining is, should the BNZ's revised plans sail through the planning process without a notified hearing. That certainly seems to be the agenda.

Yet a good year ago, the council's heritage staff belatedly declared the JBB worthy of a category B listing. Heritage campaigner Allan Matson demanded, following this reassessment, that the council begin the formal listing process.

Mayor Hubbard refused, saying it would breach the spirit of the "old boy" talks taking place. So nothing happened, even though it should have. A category B listing would now count as a "special circumstance" and be a justification for the BNZ tower block project being "notified" for public hearing.

Given that, but for the "old boys" compact, JBB would now have a category B listing, it seems only fair that an open hearing take place. If it's as "win win" as all sides are claiming, why not?