Aftermath 2 Heritage buildings, demolition & deconstruction

by patrickdunford In the past week or so there has been a great deal of debate over the impacts upon heritage buildings and the likelihood that many which havent already fallen down will have to be removed. At the same time various building owners are up in arms having discovered that their premises have been unexpectedly demolished without any notification to them or opportunity to recover items from within. The latter has gained some political traction, as indeed it should since there needs to be proper scrutiny, and accountability in the exercise, of the emergency powers which have been granted to authorities during the present state of emergency. So far the Labour Party is characterising these events as the work of cowboys acting without due authorisation from Civil Defence. This may be the case in some, but not all, of the instances so far. The second consideration for heritage buildings is the degree to which the Historic Places Trust can override sensible norms when it comes to strengthening which is needed in order to make the buildings safe for public access. Last Saturdays paper carried an article about the Octagon Restaurant which was formerly the Trinity Church (State Trinity Centre when it was owned by State Insurance). The owner detailed at some length the tension with the HPT and the amount of red tape he had to surmount, according to him being a battle with HPT and pro-heritage council staff, with consents required for almost every single restoration task, at considerable cost to building owners such as himself. The third consideration is the extent to which strengthening work has been deferred in the past. I believe that the Council has allowed very long periods of time in which the work has to be completed with the obvious effect that the work has been deferrable to a considerable extent. This should now be stopped and all work necessary be carried out forthwith. The same goes for any contemporary calls that we should get the city back into operation as quickly as possible without concerning ourselves with the need for old buildings to be strengthened. As has been shown by the recent sequence of events it was a bad mistake to have tried to do this after September 4. We now need to pause, take stock of all the current buildings, and demand that those which do not comply are immediately brought up to code, or knocked down, not left to fall down in some future event and cause a public hazard. Whilst I appreciate the value of heritage buildings, generally I loathe the buildingworshipping that is indulged in by certain heritage groups, you can tell that it is out of proportion when people are tearing their hair out or making some big deal about how they worked there for 100 years or it is some fine example of some exalted architects or builders work etc etc. So it is fair to say that I think with some of the comments made that heritage has often taken precedence over the public interest, because most of the earthquake prone buildings in the city are heritage buildings, whose owners havent either got the money to strengthen them, or the Historic Places Trust et al have blocked efforts to strengthen them. Since some of the buildings which have collapsed badly had been earthquake strengthened there are real questions which I hope the Royal Commission will be able to uncover as to whether the earthquake strengthening was compromised by heritage values to the extent these took precedence. There have been at least three people killed in heritage building

collapses, probably more but I dont have much information as to which buildings were involved yet. The important thing is that we shouldnt focus on a particular era as heritage and seek to preserve that at all costs. When Napier was devasted by the 1931 earthquake, their city centre was rebuilt in Art Deco style which is now renowned worldwide. So the comments of the Crown Minister that heritage carries forward as well as back are quite relevant. Some of the modern buildings that are built will be every bit as significant as the old which have been lost

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