Mayor backs away from saving house

By BERNARD ORSMAN

The Auckland City Council was in a heritage crisis yesterday, Mayor John Banks signalling a swift backdown on plans to save a stately Edwardian home built by the Paykel family.

The council is likely to overturn a decision to stop the two-storey home being demolished or removed to make way for 13 apartments when it meets tomorrow to finalise this year's budget.

The crisis unfolded at Friday's city development committee when six councillors unanimously decided that too many heritage buildings were being lost for apartments and took the unprecedented step of slapping a heritage order on 42 St Stephens Ave in Parnell.

The decision shocked Mr Banks, council officers, the developer and the owner of the house, who first heard about the decision in yesterday's Herald.

Mr Banks said he would not support pulling the rug on the developer, SMG Group, at the 11th hour.

He said he would love to see the home preserved but sadly it had been missed for scheduling as a heritage building.

"There are some huge public policy ramifications around this matter that we need to confront."

Among the issues are more resources for the overworked heritage division so a full inventory can be done of the city's historic buildings. Previous work has come up with 103 category A and 319 category B buildings.

Budget talks between Mr Banks, finance director David Rankin and Auckland Citizens & Ratepayers Now councillors turned to tackling the heritage crisis.

Councillor Doug Armstrong, who chairs the budget round, said officers had been asked to come up with the costs of issuing and defending the heritage order, which looked to be substantial.

As well as having to buy the property, valued at $6 million, which would be sold on once it was protected, the council would be up for compensation to the developer and owner.

Mr Armstrong said the council would then make a "sensible and pragmatic" decision.

Sandi Anderson, a lawyer for the home's owner, said the decision was a complete shock to the owner, who was selling it to the SMG for family reasons.

She had not had time to consider the consequences because the council had not notified the owners and the first she knew about it was in the Herald.

Lindsay Singleton, an SMG director and lawyer, said he had no comment.

Elsbeth Hardie of St Stephens Ave said the community was ecstatic about plans to save the property.