Brian Rudman: City leaders fail the character test

Protesters objected as fencers placed temporary wire fence around Art Deco Houses on Turua Street in St Heliers before their demolition. Photo / Greg Bowker

Talk of schizoid behaviour. On Friday, while Auckland Council's waterfront agency was proudly declaring work was about to begin on the Wynyard Quarter heritage tramway, council lawyers were dispatched to the Environment Court to ease the destruction of at least eight "character buildings" along the same heritage trail.

The Environment Court hearing followed a secret session of Auckland Council the day before where it was decided to back the old Auckland City's much criticised pepper-pot approach to heritage preservation on the old Tank Farm.

Councillors had to decide which side to take in a longstanding dispute on the Wynyard Quarter plan change. The old Auckland City had identified only eight "character buildings" in the waterfront precinct as worth protecting in its proposed plan. This was despite a report it had commissioned from heritage architects Salmond Reed listing 17 that should be saved.

The ARC appealed, arguing that all 17 of the buildings should be scheduled. Joining it in this action was the Art Deco Society.

On Thursday, the mayor and councillors had to choose between following their ACC genes or their ARC genes. Sources indicate the bureaucrats left the politicians with little choice. They were told Auckland City had done a deal with Viaduct Harbour Holdings, a big private landowner in the area - a deal which itself was so secret, the parties are sworn to deny its very existence - that the old city would not add any extra buildings to its initial list of eight.

By law, Auckland Council is bound by any agreements made by the various councils that morphed into one on November 1, including that one.

There was reportedly strong opposition from former ARC parks and heritage chairwoman Sandra Coney and former ARC chairman Mike Lee leading to the concession that the council resolved it would support the right of the ARC's ally, the Art Deco Society, to carry on the battle in the Environment Court.

Witnesses say Mayor Len Brown and councillors agreed that this decision be recorded in the published minutes. But council staff on Friday denied there was any such resolution and the published minutes show no sign of it.

After the furores over the fate of three art deco houses in St Heliers, this is another blow to Mr Brown's pro-heritage image.

For residents of the old Auckland City, it's looking very much like the open season on old buildings of last year, and the year before and ...

The original concept for the revival of the Tank Farm was a scorched earth, "Year One" approach, bulldozing the tanks, old warehouse, the lot and replacing them with acres of anonymous glass boxes.

Gradually the penny started to drop that perhaps we could learn a thing or two from successful gentrification projects such as The Rocks in Sydney. But the fixation with turning a profit from the redevelopment guaranteed the heritage cause remained an uphill battle.

When the Salmond Reed "assessment of notable character buildings and elements in the Wynyard Point precinct" was published, in March 2006, it was such a dangerous document, in bureaucratic eyes, that it was stamped CONFIDENTIAL.

A year later, when I alerted readers that public submissions were about to close, this document was still not for ratepayers' eyes. No doubt there was fear that Salmond Reed's arguments might gain too much public support.

What it said basically was that if you wanted to create a unique identity for this redevelopment, then preserving as much of the old industrial past as possible and adapting it for new uses was a no-brainer.

The language was rather more highfalutin' than that.

"Successive generations gain a sense of continuity from physical surroundings which have survived functional change ... physical relics give substance to previous events and act as evidence of the past as well as talismans of the future."

A year back, when the old ARC launched its appeal, the argument was much the same.

Instead of preserving the odd building here and there, it argued for retaining clusters of buildings, particularly on corners, providing entry points giving the precinct a real personality.

With Mayor Brown and his council now hogtied by an inherited secret deal, the future for heritage at the Tank Farm looks grim.

The small Art Deco Society remains the last line of defence. Sure, it doesn't have ratepayer funds to back the cause. But it does have heart - and a sense of history.