KEY POINTS:
The country's 23 most historic and precious lighthouses may be getting a new owner.
Maintenance and upkeep of the buildings stretching from Cape Reinga to Foveaux Strait's Dog Island is now paid for by ship and ferry owners.
But Government officials have been holding discussions about whether the
taxpayer should be liable.
Around $500,000 is spent annually maintaining the ageing lighthouse structures, many with historic classification but built from cast iron and subject to rapid rusting in the harsh maritime coastal environment.
Ship and ferry owners pay for lighthouse upkeep via a maritime safety charge. But Catherine Taylor, director of Maritime New Zealand which owns the lighthouses, said this could soon change.
"One of the options we are considering is to transfer ownership of those 23 classic lighthouses to another Crown agency and for us to lease them at the same cost as a modern equivalent asset," she said.
She refused to comment on whether the Ministry of Transport, Treasury or another department might own the lighthouses soon.
"Regardless of what happens, the lighthouses are an important asset and will remain in Crown ownership to be preserved on behalf of the public," she said.
The 23 classic lighthouses are part of 141 navigation aids maintained by Maritime NZ which owns light beacons and smaller light towers.
Some of the most well-known of the lighthouses are those at Cape Reinga, East Cape, Cape Palliser, Castle Point, Cape Egmont, Cape Brett, Kahurangi Point and Tiritiri Matangi.
"The aim of this review of lighthouses is about finding potential alternate means of funding to support the ongoing upkeep of these magnificent structures so that all New Zealanders can continue to enjoy them," Ms Taylor said.
As part of that review, the lighthouses have all just been valued.
"The reason for the valuations is that these structures are amongst the oldest working buildings in the country. The issue is that to continue to maintain those lighthouses to the standard the public expects is an expensive option.
"Valuation of these assets is also a statutory requirement by Audit New Zealand and helps us decide how to best manage these types of assets financially," she said.
Maritime NZ contracted Graeme Horsley of Mount Maunganui to put a price on the lighthouses.
Mr Horsley is a former Institute of Valuers' president and was national director of Ernst and Young NZ Real Estate Group for more than a decade.
He and Delvin Hogg - formerly of consultancy Rider Hunt in Wellington - visited the country's 97 tower lighthouses and the valuations took more than a year, he said.
Valuing the structures was complicated because of historic land ownership investigations, obscure tenure and a long paper trail.
Many of the old lighthouses were shipped from Britain in sections, ready for assembly. But Mr Horsley said the new structures were more prosaic and far less valuable.
"The old lighthouses have beacons which shine out for more than 20 nautical miles but due to technology changes, new ones only need to be a light on a simple pole that reaches out the same distance," Horsley said. "You can replace an old lighthouse for a fraction of the cost."
For example, Tiritiri Matangi's lighthouse built in 1865 was valued at $680,000. The classic stone Nugget Point lighthouse in the Catlins is valued at $253,000. But the modern light-on-a-pole lighthouse at Maori Rock is only valued at $35,000.
