Brian Rudman: Mansion's saviours have opened can of worms

COMMENT

I'm all for the grand gesture and for protecting our past, but Auckland City's decision to block the relocation of the Edwardian mansion at 42 St Stephens Ave, Parnell, seems more goofy than grand.

What, you have to ask, was in the morning tea last Friday to make city development committee chairwoman Juliet Yates and her committee, stirred up by her Auckland Citizens and Ratepayers Now colleagues Graeme Mulholland and Mark Donnelly, to unanimously decide, against legal and planning advice, to slap a rare heritage order on this not-so-old and not-so-distinctive building?

A building which has no protection under the council's district plan, no listing by the Historic Places Trust, but does have a valid permit, issued by the council in March, for its demolition. (The developer plans to relocate, not demolish.)

Talk about acting on impulse. Talk about playing fast and loose with ratepayers' money. The councillors were driven by the desire to thwart development plans for the site. The only tool available to stall development was to award the heritage order, a distinction currently bestowed on just five exceptional buildings in the city: the Bluestone Store, Courtville Buildings, Bank of New Zealand facade, Queen St, Civic Theatre and Queen St Terrace Shops.

There is no question they achieved their short-term purpose. But at a stroke, the committee has also thrown the city's whole heritage classification system into confusion. For example, the Town Hall, a Category A building, has a score of 123 on the heritage scale but does not have a heritage order. The St Stephens Ave house, with a recently assessed score of just 60, does.

It is a bit like awarding the Victoria Cross to me for helping an old lady across the road.

As John Duthie, manager, city planning, argued in his report, the five current heritage order buildings are all listed category A in the district plan. This house, on the other hand, has no listing, though it was recently assessed to be worthy of a category B listing.

As such, it would not, says Mr Duthie, meet the "special interest" test required under the Resource Management Act for the granting of a heritage protection order. Do it anyway, said the committee.

There are 103 category A listed buildings in Auckland City and another 319 category B. Among the A buildings are the Town Hall, Old Custom House and the Tepid Baths. Not one of these 422 enjoy the protection suddenly bestowed on 42 St Stephens Avenue.

Mrs Yates heralded her committee's action as a sign "we are entering a new era of heritage protection in Auckland City".

What will this new era bring? The first thing will be a bill to ratepayers for the $6 million plus market price for the house plus whatever damages the irate developer and owner manages to extract after an expensive court battle.

That's $6 million plus in unbudgeted expenditure that could repair a lot of dangerous footpaths.

What else does this move signal? Perhaps that the city council is willing to buy every grand 100-year-old residence in Remuera, Parnell and St Marys Bay that a developer starts sniffing around?

For that's the inevitable outcome, if last week's ad hoc approach to heritage protection is a sign of the new age to come. Especially in an open market economy where, in the end, if we, as a community, wants a property preserved, we have no option but to buy it at the market price.

It's ironic that at the same time senior Citrat Juliet Yates is declaring her new age of heritage protection, the council's veteran heritage manager, George Farrant, is going public with the warning that his staff are overworked and under too much pressure. "Everyone's incredibly pushed, dangerously pushed."

The department is so busy it is refusing to organise the council's heritage week in September. The department's four full-time professional staff have to try to process 200 applications at any one time. The Yates committee's response to this is to set new tasks. They want staff to scour the city looking for more buildings to save by listing in a full heritage inventory.

And once they've found more buildings to save, what do they propose to do with them? Preserve them in aspic and send the bill to you and me?