Brian Rudman: The bankers are back with their bulldozers

How contrary we Aucklanders are. No sooner has Environment Minister Marian Hobbs declared 2005 the Year of the Built Environment than downtown we destroy the mood by lining up the bulldozers in front of the art deco, seven-level Jean Batten State Building.

The wrecker's spokesman, Owen Gill, says his master, Australian-owned Bank of New Zealand, wants to build a "good building" on the site that will be "quite an addition to Auckland," a "landmark corporate headquarters" that will "improve the external environment."

They must be blind. They already have a good building on the site. And with a little imagination, they could convert and transform it into a landmark corporate headquarters. Instead, with no respect for the historic environment they have bought into, the bankers seem set on a repeat of their 1970s blitzkrieg policy that brought devastation to the neighbouring Queen St site. On that instance, the BNZ's "improvements" resulted in the destruction of the historic and much-loved 19th-century Victoria Arcade.

Now the ugly, squat building that replaced the arcade is destined to be bowled along with its art deco neighbour.

Last Friday Auckland City's environment, heritage and urban form committee met in secret to discuss Jean Batten's fate. It seems the councillors passed the parcel to a meeting of the full council this week. It's a decision which could make or break the new regime's reputation.

Put simply, the mayor and council have to decide whether to take a stand in favour of our built heritage, as they pledged last September would be a priority of the next three years if only we were to return them to office.

A good first move would be to temporarily freeze any risk of destructive activity by issuing a heritage order. This would give the council's heritage staff a chance to go through the rigmarole of awarding the building the B category protection it agrees it should now have. This is an upgrading of the classification the heritage boffins originally awarded the building, but not as high as the A protection the Art Deco Society and campaigner Allan Matson reckon it deserves.

The council could also draw a line in the sand by publicly declaring the demolition order issued to the BNZ four years ago has expired. BNZ and council lawyers have been tussling over this for months. On paper, it expired in December. But the BNZ are arguing a 2003 amendment to the Resource Management Act has extended its life.

I don't normally approve councils wasting ratepayers' funds on courtroom analysis of the finer points of the law. But in this case it's worth it, if only to delay any progress on the building site, and to flush the bankers out into the open to explain their destructive plans.

Of course the BNZ are not the only party in this project. Their partner is the Australian construction giant Multiplex. It is ironic that a couple of blocks north of the Jean Batten building, Multiplex is about to begin work on the $350 million Britomart precinct which includes the restoration of 17 historic buildings. Auckland City Council selected the Bluewater Consortium and Multiplex to do this job.

You might have assumed from that that Multiplex had an affinity with past structures. It seems not. You'd have thought that the partnership would also have emboldened the mayor and politicians to go knock on the destroyer's door and demand a hearing. And an explanation. From what I can discern, though, my suggestion of a month ago, that Mayor Hubbard and entourage should hot foot it to Melbourne and rattle the cage of the BNZ's owners, National Australia Bank Group, has fallen on deaf ears.

If the politicians want the rest of us to believe their election pledges were nothing more than ye olde political hot air, then they'd better stop dithering on this issue and do what they said they would do.

They could embolden themselves with the words of Environment Minister Hobbs, who says the year of the built environment "will be an opportunity for New Zealanders to celebrate the buildings, spaces, places and structure in which they live, work and play".

They could also reflect that it's hard to do the above when the wrecker's ball is swinging through your neighbourhood.