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Heritage buildings can be monuments to our past, and the Nelson City Council wants to expand the timeline – but at what cost? And who pays? Tracy Neal reports.
The next time you’re wandering Nelson city’s tree-lined residential streets and uniform cul-de-sacs, take a closer look. Those steeply pitched tile roofs, gables, wide weatherboards and linear dimensions are more than just the framework of typical Kiwi homes and office blocks. They’re windows on a timeline of post-colonial to avant-garde New Zealand, which apparently Nelson has plenty of.
Design trends reflect social history, which is why authorities want to do more to preserve these monuments to our past. But this is getting up some people’s noses, especially in the current climate of earthquake awareness. Debates are growing louder around the issue of public good versus public safety.
Heritage precincts already exist in Nelson, but an opportunity to expand the city’s inventory of traditional homes, commercial and public buildings has come about through the current scheduled revision of the district plan heritage list, required by the Resource Management Act. Nelson is one of several local authorities doing so.
But the council’s method has caught several property owners off guard, angering some who claimed at a recent public meeting to have known nothing about their inclusion in the draft.
They’re unhappy that their rights as property owners appear to have been ignored, and have raised questions over how realistic the incentives are, given the council’s meagre Heritage Project Fund, which has always been heavily oversubscribed.
It’s set at just over $60,000 in the coming financial year – a pittance compared to the costs involved in restoring older buildings, which in some cases can run into millions of dollars.
A heritage working party member, Councillor Derek Shaw, acknowledged some weeks ago that the council would have to consider whether to extend the fund. The council’s design guide for heritage properties is concerned primarily with the streetscape and the appearance of the buildings from the street.
Nelson architect Marc Barron told the Nelson Mail recently that the point of a heritage precinct was to preserve a group of similar buildings. It worked well when a community of owners saw the benefits, but he acknowledged that any sort of heritage listing imposed certain constraints.
The driver of the change is that Nelson has some architecturally unique enclaves, Wellington architect and conservator Ian Bowman says.
Despite controversy around his appointment as lead consultant on the project, Mr Bowman insists he has taken an entirely objective stance. He makes recommendations to the working party, which includes councillors, set up to assess buildings, sites, areas and items considered worth protecting.
Mr Bowman says 15 or 16 key themes differentiate Nelson development from elsewhere in New Zealand, but the heritage inventory was found wanting in a number of areas, including that modernist buildings had not been included. His father, the late Alex Bowman, was a nationally recognised figure in modernist design.
“What we’re trying to do is use a wider representation that reflects key historical events in Nelson’s growth and development,” Mr Bowman says.
Council planning adviser and project manager Peter Rawson says the council reviewed how it protects heritage with a “thematic” overview earlier this year. What came out of it was that Nelson apparently contains architectural treasures of national significance – with one area, notably Fifeshire Cres above the Nelson waterfront, having “high national significance”.
It might be a leap for some to consider that buildings constructed in the 1950s and 60s should be a part of Nelson’s heritage worth protecting, but the crescent is considered the country’s best example of contiguous groupings of Modern Movement-styled houses designed in consistent Bay area style, by one architect – in this case, Alex Bowman. The only other comparable grouping of homes in a style considered contemporary New Zealand is in Whanganui.
The four Nelson homes earmarked include Ian Bowman’s own home in Britannia Heights, which his father designed and in which Ian grew up. It overlooks the three other houses in Fifeshire Cres. The owners are quietly up in arms, and while they’re reluctant to talk publicly, it’s obvious there is simmering resentment over what appears to be a conflict of interest.
Ian Bowman, who denies he’s pushing the merits of his father, tried getting heritage status for the four homes in 2005 by having them listed in a heritage precinct in the Nelson Resource Management Plan. The recommendation then was that his own home be reassessed for inclusion as a Group B heritage building.
Council staff then recommended listing houses only when the owners agreed. None of the owners of the other three properties agreed. The owners of two of them have since changed, but it’s evident that a lack of agreement still exists.
“My father’s house was the first hollow concrete block house in New Zealand, recognised by [architectural historian] Julia Gatley, who wrote about it in the Modern Movement book,” Mr Bowman says.
“Preserving my place and others built by my father wasn’t a driving force. I did it completely objectively.
“I think people are hung up about the precinct, but take that [concept] away and the houses stand on their own. Each has national or regional significance because of their historical associations.”
He says the point of difference this time in wanting them included is an emphasis on the historical associations of the Nelson identities who lived in the homes, including the Moore family, which has ties to Nelson’s legal and medicine fields; the Browns, who co-founded the Anchor Shipping and Foundry Company; and the Ivorys, who built industries supporting Nelson’s pipfruit industry.
At least one Fifeshire Cres resident thinks that’s a tenuous link in the argument.
The recommended Bronte, Brougham, Collingwood and Trafalgar Sts precinct is considered a good representation of New Zealand domestic architecture from the 1860s to the 1950s and 60s. The area reflects a historical pattern of residential development distinctive to Nelson during subdivision of the original “Town Acre” by the New Zealand Company.
Wolfe St’s key heritage values include its representation of a good, compact grouping of second-generation state housing.
The Wolfe St houses are styled on an English-based cottage most characteristic of pre- and post-World War II state houses, and have high historic values because of their association with New Zealand’s unique social and political history around housing workers.
Julia Gatley and Bill McKay wrote in their 2011 book Group Architects that state housing is a good reflection of New Zealand’s established record of public intervention in the housing market. The country’s first Labour Government established the Department of Housing and Construction in 1936 and embarked on building the thousands of state houses that soon dominated New Zealand’s suburban landscapes.
The report said it was rare to have a largely authentic grouping of state houses, and the area was considered to be high national significance.
Mount St features a compact and coherent group of homes with little or no infill development which reflect a consistent style of Italianate, Bay villa or plain villa and a high quality of architecture and building.
Haven Rd has homes designed in consistent bungalow style, considered excellent examples of good working-class houses owned by people who worked at the port.
Nelson man Peter Robins, who has owned a heritage property, said he thought the scheme was great in principle, but what had recently emerged were issues around safety, energy and conservation.
“If I was to enter a scheme now, I would be concerned about the meshing of those three issues,” he said at a public meeting.
Mr Robins also questioned how the scheme’s overseers would handle revised earthquake standards requirements, and how it would negotiate the delicate matter of owners of heritage properties needing resource consent to do work when others doing similar work would not need a consent.
The “zero fees” incentive for resource consents applies only to non-notified applications to conserve and restore a heritage item.
Perhaps the most glaring example of the emerging conflict between public good and public safety exists in the Haven Rd cottages.
The owner of three of them, Helen Vesper, was among the most outspoken people at a recent public meeting on the heritage project. The houses are currently uninhabitable, having been red-stickered by the council after last December’s floods and slips, one of which caused major damage around Haven Rd.
“We will be lucky if we have anyone living in them within a year,” Mrs Vesper told the meeting, aghast that she might have to negotiate strict terms around their renovation if they are classified as heritage buildings.
She’s reluctant to say publicly what her options are, given the latest advice from EQC – that a “catch fence” behind the homes can only provide surety for a year.
“If we’re going to spend any money, we need to know the homes will be around for longer than that,” Mrs Vesper told the Nelson Mail.
The bottom line for her and plenty of others with homes earmarked for heritage status is that they don’t want the council taking control of their properties.
“We know these three houses have significance, but they are not sitting in a place where people can easily see them,” she said of the cottages beside State Highway 6.
“South St and Elliott St are totally different scenarios, but we can’t even insulate the Haven Rd houses because of their construction.
“What we want from the council now is some sort of clarification over what their plan is for these properties before we put a retaining wall behind them.”
She is relieved that the council appears to be recognising the owners’ predicament, but in the grander scheme of things, she doesn’t believe Nelsonians would mind if the cottages weren’t there.
“I think the council has been very misguided in all this, and it’s stressing some owners a great deal,” Mrs Vesper said of the process to date, which she said seemed to be fairly arbitrary and autocratic. “They say it will be another three years before this is in place. They’ve been working on it for two years, and none of us knew anything about it until we got a letter.
“You can’t do that to people. There will be some out there who can’t fight this – I know the council has tried its best, but all they’ve done is throw up a lot of fear.
“There are plenty of people willing to volunteer their homes without picking on the people who aren’t interested.”
Councillor Rachel Reese, who has a special interest in heritage through her specialist field, resource management, and who is part of the heritage working party, said at a recent public meeting that the owners’ concerns were legitimate.
“We don’t underestimate how contentious this is,” Ms Reese says.
Colleague and fellow working party member Councillor Kate Fulton is at pains to express that the process to date has been very preliminary, and that nothing has been decided.
“I don’t like the fact that people feel this is being forced on them,” Ms Fulton says.
The idea that discussions around heritage are getting beyond the scope of local authorities is supported by Nelson planner and resource management consultant Jackie McNae. She believes the debate needs to be led at a national level.
“It can’t be done without national leadership, because the pool of money available at local level amounts to a drop in the ocean,” she says.
A puzzle the council has is that the draft for the heritage inventory project preceded the Canterbury earthquakes and their huge aftermath.
“Christchurch has made us more aware of buildings not up to code. That was always the case, but it’s been heightened now. It’s an issue for everyone, but it’s more sharply focused on institutional and commercial buildings.
“My concern is that it seems that while there’s more quality research with the likes of this work, the issue is too large to be dealt with by local authorities. It needs to be at a level of national leadership.”
Ms McNae says the concept of incentives, including rates relief and financial assistance for the owners of heritage properties, is laudable, but the reality is quite different.
“It’s not that the Government should pay, but what are the options for funding? Do we want education dollars spent on preserving a classroom or building a new science lab? We need to ask, what are we prepared to sacrifice?”
She questions how public good can be placed before public safety, especially because the scale of the seismic issue is phenomenal.
“We can’t just say heritage is more important. It’s people’s safety we’re talking about, but how do you deal with these two significant issues, which are each of national importance?
“That’s where we should be having a national conversation around that and looking at priorities.”
Ms McNae praises the research done so far in the draft heritage project, but asks whether an earthquake hazard document might be more appropriate now.
“It’s about where we go from here.
“If we do nothing, we are going to have a lot of buildings with no-one in them.”
Adding more hertiage value to the city
Husband and wife heritage team Neil Deans and Lynn Cadenhead have been change agents for a small corner of Nelson.
They moved here from Hamilton in the early 1990s, bought a cottage in Elliott St for $80,000, did some research and discovered an important link between the street and Nelson’s social history.
Aside from the fact the street is named after city forefather Charles Elliott, whose list of “firsts” includes founding the city’s first newspaper, The Examiner, the street also tells a story about a notable time in the country’s political history.
Mr Deans discovered soon after arrival that it is Nelson’s only example of a settlement built under the Workers’ Dwelling Act. Several of the houses pre-date the act introduced in 1905 by Prime Minister Richard Seddon to provide well-built suburban houses for workers who earned less than 156 pounds a year.
The flaw in the well-intentioned plan was that by the end of World War I the prices on the finished houses had doubled and the workers couldn’t afford them. The first house in the street was built in the 1860s and the last during the 1940s.
Soon after moving in, Mr Deans and Ms Cadenhead, who are members of Nelson’s Heritage Advisory Group, started doing the spadework needed to get the street recognised as a heritage precinct.
The catalyst was concern over the likelihood that one house was to be demolished for a subdivision behind.
“We asked for this collectively, but it took quite a lot of one-to-one talks with the street’s residents. Some weren’t interested and some were concerned,” Mr Deans says.
About 40 residents were involved when discussions began in 1992. Elliott St was designated a heritage precinct in 1993.
The pair say two things made it different from the current proposal to expand the city’s inventory of heritage homes and buildings.
“There is a special unifying feature in that this street and somewhere like South St had a particular reason for existing.”
The couple are firm believers in the value of preserving heritage, but for the right reasons. Their philosophy was driven in part by despair at what had happened in Hamilton.
“We had left Hamilton, whose character had been overwhelmed by expansion of new suburbs. It was characterised by in-fill housing of low quality,” Mr Deans says.
The benefits of being in a precinct include certainty about neighbours and the fact you’re “not going to get a three-storey apartment next to you”, Ms Cadenhead says.
They know of two properties in the street maintained using a share of the heritage fund available to owners of listed properties. They were able to remove the chimney on their home, considered too dangerous to keep, with a resource consent that carried no fee.
The condition of the houses in the street had improved tremendously. Their own place now has a capital value close to $400,000. A house in the street recently sold for almost $700,000.
“What it is, is a collective agreement among residents as to how they will maintain their properties,” Mr Deans says.
But it’s not without its tensions. Half the homes in Elliott St are on a flood overlay, according to the current district plan, meaning they should be raised by almost a metre. That would harm the street’s appearance and place it in conflict with its heritage values.
While they see merit in the plan to expand heritage inventory, and Ms Cadenhead was among many people who recommended prospective buildings, she and Mr Deans have expressed concern over the method of engagement.
They say tactical errors have been made.
“The project is well-intentioned, but you have to get people on-side,” Mr Deans says.
“If you’re not framing a proposal in a way that benefits people they’re going to say, ‘We’re not going to be part of it’.
“Elliott St was processed in a way that benefits people.”
They believe the plan can be salvaged to become something that adds value to Nelson.
“If someone doesn’t want to be listed, then drop them off,” Ms Cadenhead suggests.
– © Fairfax NZ News
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