Questions of character in the suburbs

St Heliers is one of the suburban centres being given greater protection by the Auckland City Council to preserve its character. Picture / Dean Purcell

Tough new design rules will protect Auckland's favourite neighbourhood shopping centres from ugly new buildings. At least that's the plan, announced by the city council this week, but Auckland City reporter Bernard Orsman finds not everyone is convinced. Heritage supporters worry that the council may not follow up on its own decision - and some shop owners believe the rules are far too restrictive anyway.

What type of shopping centres does the Auckland City Council want to protect?

The rules will not apply to big shopping malls or major strips like Newmarket, Ponsonby and Parnell but to neighbourhood shopping centres with a butcher and grocer.

Most of the centres are in middle-class enclaves like Mt Eden village, up-and-coming Ellerslie, well-heeled St Heliers and trendy Grey Lynn.

Each are different but they have Victorian and Edwardian buildings of a similar scale and rhythm rich in architectural details along a main street and often on a ridge.


Why protect them?

In recent times, these centres have been eroded by developments bearing no resemblance to the predominant traditional character.

Community pressure to unsympathetic development in town centres like St Heliers - and the loss of a historic church in Mt Eden - has led the council to introduce guidelines to control change and encourage appropriate development to enhance traditional character.

This has taken the form of "character overlays" in the six centres of Grey Lynn, West Lynn, Kingsland, Ellerslie, Eden Valley and upper Symonds St.

The council has also introduced, subject to appeal, "centre plans" for Mt Eden and the seaside village of St Heliers to preserve character buildings, introduce traffic controls and design guidelines.


How does it work?

The rules mean a resource consent is needed for the demolition, alteration or addition to "character defining" or "character supporting" buildings in these areas.

The rules are intended to preserve traditional buildings and intact groups of character buildings. New buildings and additions do not have to mimic historic styles and materials but reinforce the predominant streetscape character.


Can the rules make a difference?

Heritage architect Adam Wild, who toured the eight centres with the Weekend Herald, welcomed the new rules.

However, he was nervous about the ability of council officers to apply them in a meaningful way.

This was based on news that the Auckland council had not turned down any demolition applications since new rules to protect heritage villas and bungalows in character suburbs were introduced 12 months ago.


What is "character" in a shopping centre anyway?

The Weekend Herald asked Mr Wild to look at the shopping centres chosen by the council.

He liked a lot of what he found - sensitive, in-scale additions using interesting materials in West Lynn, a town centre primed for 21st-century growth in Ellerslie and an edgy roughness to Upper Symonds St.

Not everything was to his liking, such as a four-storey commercial/apartment block in St Heliers "that could be anywhere". There were also the complexities of running a city when issues like road-widening and character collided in Dominion Rd.

"What we see through only a few examples is that Auckland is a rich and varied city," he said. "But design rules and guidelines that might support these centres mustn't become prescriptive but do everything to step back and see the intrigue, the intimacy, the expression and distinctiveness of local villages."


Rules too strict

Some shop owners say the council's new rules are too strict and will stop them from upgrading tired old buildings.

Robin Sheffield, who owns several commercial buildings in St Heliers, said there was a need for further controls in character areas such as St Heliers but these should be design-led rather than rule-driven.

"Most of the commercial buildings in St Heliers are more than 50 years old and reaching the end of their economic life.

"You won't be able to replace them and it is just going to degrade the centre."

If building owners wanted to redevelop a character-defining or character-supporting building of, say, two storeys, they could only replace it with a building of two storeys. This went against previous rules in the district plan, which allowed for a height limit of 12.5m, or up to four storeys.

"What I believe should happen is there should be a design-driven control over the redevelopment of any building. A property developer must produce a plan with the approval of the urban design panel and it must fit within the general theme of the area," he said.

Town planner Alex Findlay, who represented Mr Sheffield and three other landowners in St Heliers when the new rules were being introduced, said the restrictions were as onerous as a heritage protection.

She cited a number of prescriptive rules in the case of St Heliers, such as the requirement for pitched roofs even if a new roof was hidden behind a parapet, the freeze on existing heights and not being able to demolish a building without resource consent for its replacement.