As Auckland’s Heritage festival gets under way this week, the Herald takes a closer look at three of the city’s suburbs: their past, present and future visions. Corazon Miller reports
Karangahape Rd
The feared "gentrification" that could come with the ongoing commercial and residential developments may prove to be a double-edged sword for the street, which has overcome its seedy reputation to once again become a popular haunt for locals.
In the mid-20th century Karangahape Rd was the place to be; department stores took pride of place, regularly frequented by the city's housewives, and wedding parties were a regular weekend show.
Historian Edward Bennett said these charming scenes of its former glory days were often forgotten.
K'Rd's demise as the city's major retail precinct was linked to the Newton Motorway interchange built during 1965-75 and the demolition of several thousand buildings around the central city - including several hundred on K'Rd.
"This was a catastrophe for local businesses."
K'Rd has long been a main thoroughfare through the city. It was a key walking track for Maori before the Europeans arrived, was a major road going both north and south until the harbour bridge was built in 1959 and even now is bustling with activity.
However, Mr Bennett said the interchange significantly reduced the local population, drove a lot of the local businesses out and contributed to the street's rise in notoriety as a red-light district in the late 1980s and 1990s.
Today it has evolved from being one of the seediest streets in town to one that is still a little rough at the edges, but has, at its heart, an eclectic mix of second-hand stores, trendy cafes, retail shops, a mix of ethnic restaurants and many of the city's quirky creatives.
"It has an emotional resonance that many other streets don't have," Mr Bennett said.
Tina Plunkett, who lived on the street for 15 years until the rising cost of rent forced her to relocate nearby, said it was the street's diverse characters and its ease of access to everywhere that made it such a great place to live. "You can't pinpoint who makes K'Rd."
Ms Plunkett said alongside the remnants of its red-light reputation was the gay scene, the artistic scene, the nightclubs, the gentry and the Sunday church-goers.
She acknowledged the development of nearby apartment blocks and the redevelopment of some of the older heritage buildings, such as St Kevin's Arcade, was contributing to a gradual gentrification.
But she said there were some benefits to this if it meant iconic heritage buildings were maintained.
"If the worst they do is put on a bit of paint, then that's a pretty good outcome," she said. "If the artists can't stay they will find elsewhere to go."
James Kermode from Match Realty, who is letting space in the iconic arcade, said it set an example for how buildings could be restored.
"It's part of a rich history of retail that goes back decades ... and forms a part of the landscape for the future."
For City Sales managing director, Martin Dunn, who has been in the area for 18 years, this gentrification couldn't come soon enough. "It's been slightly dismaying that the rate of change has been zero for that time."
But he said with the arrival of hundreds of new apartments nearby, such as Urba, a 143-apartment block due to open next year, change would be quick.
He said many of those buying into the apartments were older, and brought a "certain maturity" that would demand a "certain standard of living and culinary offerings".
"The 24/7 pub [on the Symonds St end of K'Rd] was the last bastion of low-life in K'Rd.
"There'll be young hippies who are resentful that K'Rd's 'special flavour' will be gone," he said. "But I think it's changing for the better.
"It's part of New Zealand's early heritage and is irreplaceable."
But Mr Bennett said this was not guaranteed with only 12 of the 300 heritage buildings in the area protected. "Karangahape Rd has a lot to lose," he said.
The K'Road Business Association has put in a submission to make the precinct into a Historic Heritage Area, but Auckland Council Manager Heritage Noel Reardon said the recommendation wouldn't be available till next year.
However, Mr Bennett maintained it wouldn't take much for the community to protect the street's history.
"Maintaining these heritage buildings won't cause economic catastrophe, in fact, it would cause the opposite."
Mr Bennett said K'Rd could become Auckland's own Soho - a popular hot spot known for its range of shopping and dining options against a backdrop of exquisite architecture.
"A lot of people can interact with each other in Karangahape Rd - this has come to be its greatest strength," he said. "I'd like to see that carry on."
There are hopes the reclamation of the suburb's harbour will rejuvenate the old town and provide a wharf reminiscent of its old glory days when it was a port of importance in the British Empire.
Contrary to its weathered appearance, Onehunga was once one of the richest areas in the region. The former settlement for retired British soldiers, established in 1847, was a thriving port town and home to the first zoo and to the British Empire's first woman mayor - Elizabeth Yates.
In its more prosperous days the port town had most shipping routes passing through its harbour, but by World War I, marine traffic waned as bigger ships favoured the larger Waitemata Harbour. The national railway built in 1908 further contributed to the port's fall from grace by offering a more profitable land freight option.
Today, the suburb's zoo is long gone, having closed in 1922; some of its more historic markers, such as a stone bridge built by the British soldiers, have been forced to give way to modern developments and its port is no longer a vital shipping link.
Onehunga Business Association manager Amanda Kinzett said; "Like a lot of original settlements, Onehunga had its place in time."
She said traces of this time were still visible, including the many buildings along the main street that date back to 1890 and St Peters Church, built in 1848, where the victims of those drowned in the 1863 HMS Orpheus shipwreck and Ms Yates are among those buried in its grounds.
How long these heritage buildings will stand is less certain.
"Some have heritage protection ... in Onehunga we have a heritage overlay, however what that means has yet to be determined," she said.
She said newer buildings must have heritage characteristics, but "this has never been enforced by council".
Ms Kinzett said a certain level of heritage protection was necessary to help preserve the suburb's unique identity, but was realistic that this needed to be balanced with the buildings' conditions and overall costs.
Councillor for Maungakiekie-Tamaki Denise Krum said the reality was not everything could be saved.
"You need to preserve its heritage or it will lose its soul," she said. "It's the past that will hold the future together."
But she said it was better to focus on a few key areas and do this well.
One key project is the recent work to reclaim the former borough's foreshore, which had become unsightly and unsafe, creating some 6.8ha of new parklands, complete with a pedestrian and cycle bridge and paths, beaches and a boat ramp.
"There would be residents who remembered swimming there in their younger years - and here we go again."
Ms Krum hoped the project, which was was expected to open in November, would be the start of returning the waterfront to its residents.
"It needs to be a mixed, thriving wharf for its residents, where you can have live jazz playing on the wharf, a wet fish market, little kids sitting and waiting while parents offload their boats.
The residents of this former farming settlement turned picturesque village on the edge of the riverbank hope its unique Bohemian character and heritage will help it hold out against the rapid rural development happening throughout the wider Auckland region.
The sight that greeted Puhoi's first European settlers 150 years ago was not the welcoming land of milk and honey they'd been led to believe it would be.
After a four-month voyage across the ocean, from the former kingdom of Bohemia, and a canoe journey downriver in 1863, these first settlers were shocked to find before them steep, arduous land, coated with a thick layer of native bush.
Resident historian Jenny Schollum said despite the settlers' initial disappointment they were determined to make it work.
Street scene of Puhoi, with the Puhoi Centennial Hall (right) and the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in the distance. Photo / Natalie Slade
"Their motto was 'we kept the faith and helped each other'."
The native forestry was transformed into a timber trading commodity, much of the land was cleared to make way for working sheep and cattle farms and a school, hotel, church, convent and presbytery were built in the heart of the new village.
Where once it was only accessible via the tidal reach of its river, Puhoi can now be accessed via State Highway One, which traverses the eastern side of the village; its wharf provides a key connection out to the sea and the surrounding harbours; and there are also plans to further extend the highway through to Warkworth.
Judith Williams, whose great-great-grandparents were among the first Bohemian settlers, said this once traditional farming community has transformed into a diverse mix of people from differing cultures and ways of life.
She said while a good number do work in the village, many residents choose to commute into Auckland city or the surrounding satellite towns for work.
Despite this increased ease of access and changing demographic, Puhoi remains a small village community with its historic and cultural roots visible in its older buildings and regular community celebrations.
It has also survived being swallowed up in the rash of suburban developments that have cropped up in the wider Auckland region.
Its nearest neighbours are Waiwera, 6km to the south, Orewa, 12km to the south and Warkworth 16km to the north.
Manager Heritage at Auckland Council, Noel Reardon, said Puhoi has four scheduled places, including its village centre, and a precinct which controls subdivision, which is generally consistent with what it had in the legacy plan that will protect its heritage.
But Ms Williams said despite these protections it was important not to get complacent, especially given the growth of nearby towns such as Warkworth.
"There will always be pressures, we have to be careful," she said.
"We have a wonderful caring, safe community where we can have our gardens and our estates.
"Politically, geographically and linguistically Puhoi is very different to other settlements in New Zealand," she said.
