By Alexander Gillespie*
Anyone trying to follow the latest political debate over housing, urban intensification and development can be forgiven for feeling confused.
The National Party’s newly announced housing policy would allow local councils to opt out of the Medium Density Residential Standards the party originally supported. The Labour government calls it a “flip flop”, the Greens call it “confused”, but National says its policy is in fact “more ambitious”.
What does seem clear, however, is that some form of urban intensification will still play a role in New Zealand’s future planning. And that, of course, comes with its own layers of confusion and conflict – particularly between advocates of more medium-density housing and defenders of urban heritage.
For a long time, this clash of values and visions created mainly local and regional challenges. But since the Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Act pushed old regional zoning laws aside, the problem has only grown.
Labour and National in standoff over housing density https://t.co/HKWjl7QkGk
— RNZ News (@rnz_news) May 30, 2023
Defining ‘heritage’
Many urban communities are now having to balance the urgent need for more housing and the perceived dangers of what can appear like a tidal wave of sometimes inappropriate development.
This is partly due to the vague definitions of what constitutes urban heritage in the first place. Essentially, it refers to the layers of history within a community, from iconic monuments and buildings to housing and green spaces.
Often in New Zealand it is assumed “heritage” refers to the leafy suburbs of renovated colonial villas and bungalows. But it can also be ordinary, informal, unspectacular and utilitarian – what is known as “vernacular” – and still have deep significance. This kind of heritage also maintains connections with previous generations.
It’s hardly surprising, though, that the impact of development and regeneration can threaten urban heritage. Jackhammers or simply changes in planning law can fragment these valuable urban histories.
New Zealand has a particularly poor record of conserving its past, having failed to protect countless examples of its significant and vernacular built heritage. For every art deco treasure in Napier, there are many lost links to the past.
Despite resource management laws to protect historic heritage from inappropriate use and development, wider appreciation of heritage values has been slow to take hold.
Rules for progress
One way to see progress – and to avoid a perpetual standoff between vested interests – might be through greater appreciation of international best practice. The principles of the International Council on Sites and Monuments (ICOMOS) provide a useful guide.
ICOMOS is the only global non-governmental organisation of its kind dedicated to promoting the conservation of architectural and archaeological heritage. It has national committees in 107 countries, including New Zealand, and provides expert advice to bodies such as the World Heritage Convention.
Since 1964 it has set standards for safeguarding and conserving historic cities, towns and urban areas. These standards are based on its original principles, which were further updated in 2011.
As tension in New Zealand between urban intensification and preserving urban heritage seems likely to increase, these principles inform four broad themes that will be worth keeping in mind.
1. Local communities come first
Local people and communities should sit at the heart of any conservation efforts, not out-of-town developers or remote government departments. The desire to protect local heritage should be encouraged and supported. The relevant ICOMOS rule states:
The participation and the involvement of the residents are essential for the success of the conservation programme and should be encouraged. The conservation of historic towns and urban areas concerns their residents first of all.
2. Heritage areas must be credible
Planning for the conservation of historic towns and urban areas should be preceded by multidisciplinary studies that address not only architecture, but also the history, sociology and contexts of the places under review.
These plans should determine what must be preserved, what should be preserved under certain circumstances, and what may be expendable. But they should not be used as a tactic simply to deflect urban intensification. Once the authenticity and integrity of heritage areas is established, however, the presumption should be that conservation is a priority.
3. Protection requires a wide lens
Urban heritage protection needs to be about more than just buildings. It is about managing the relationship of the built environment to its surroundings, both natural and constructed.
This involves ensuring infrastructure is adequate and potential nuisances (such as traffic and parking) accounted for. Planners should also avoid sharp divisions between protected and unprotected areas by creating buffer zones.
These intermediate areas help enhance what is protected, rather than allow inappropriate bordering developments that can directly overshadow the conserved areas.
4. Improving housing is a priority
Urban heritage is not about preserving history in a glass case. Historic urban areas should be allowed to evolve. Change and development should be welcomed if they facilitate and improve housing, and are compatible with the character of a historic area, the existing spatial layout, scale and section size. ICOMOS is very clear on this point:
The improvement of housing should be one of the basic objectives of conservation.
The risk, of course, is that gentrification can price original communities out of their own neighbourhoods, and ultimately alter the character of a place to the extent its heritage value has changed too. As ICOMOS states:
Retention of the traditional cultural and economic diversity of each place is essential, especially when it is characteristic of the place.
None of these balancing acts is easy. But we need to avoid the perception of a binary choice between housing people and saving traditional urban areas. It is possible to do both – but this requires a degree of finesse currently missing from aspects of the local debate.
*Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
24 Comments
The houses in the photo are actually old and cold and not fit for purpose under the building act and HH act. Yes if you spend a huge sum on them, they will be improved. But still have crying windows and mouldy walls. Probably occupied by students who just want somewhere cheap to live.
Their design and age keeps them safe from the wrecking ball. I've seen many homes listed as heritage that don't have anywhere near the character of these homes. Neighbourhoods that want to protect absolute crap are doing so under the guise of heritage when they really just dont want change. Lets be honest.
We need freedom of movement and freedom of expression to dominate the conversation. Result, more supply not silly endless rules.
Yes and no. I'd argue that many older houses may have faults but are inherently beautiful in many places. Build from what were once plentiful native hardwoods such as Rimu, Matai and Kauri. If people want to own and maintain these houses they are able to of their own volition, but they shouldn't be able to stop a neighbour on their own property bowling and rebuilding due to some BS neighbourhood character NIMBYism.
I feel as a matter of a respect to the land and to history that any older houses such as these getting bowled should re-use as much off the wood as they can and keep the character and history that came with them. Less wood usage, more recycling.
What heritage, seriously? There's only a few that I can think of off the top of my head that are really significant [and still in use/maintained], all the rest seem to be about locking us in the past and/or nimbyism.
Buildings that have no purpose other than existing are a waste of space. Demo, put up a placard, move on.
As a dynamic growing country we could consider every square metre of land as having a potential value, and needing to deliver payment to cover that value every single day. That value has no relation to the value yesterday, only what that land can provide us today and tomorrow.
Preserved heritage is one way to provide that payment. St Gerard's church/monastery on the Mt Victoria hillside above Wellington provides plenty in what it adds to the 'personality' of Wellington - i.e. it is nice to look at. That land of course has huge potential value too, so we have to always consider if enough payment is being provided. A heritage house in Newtown delivers some amount of value too, kept as a heritage house. But does that compare to the value of medium density accommodation in that area?
Local people and communities should sit at the heart of any conservation efforts
Wrong. Those with the knowledge and ability to determine the potential value of the land should be at the heart. Consulted with by those who can value the preserved heritage of that land, which includes the local community. In one example, the Newtown suburb has the ability to support the running of Wellington's hospital by not being a rundown mix of leaky old homes and barely preserved heritage. Of course out of town developers cannot be trusted to honestly estimate the value they provide, but communities tend to be clueless to the potential of the land they occupy.
On a related aspect, putting my NIMBY hat on: is it legally possible in NZ to raise a damages claim against the council & Housing NZ for your neighbourhoods property values dropping substantially because state housing is secretly approved to be built in it without consultation and consideration ?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/491492/neighbours-feel-caught-out-b…
So, also a "disaster" for the existing homeowners who paid a premium for their neighbourhood property & amenity value & will logically suffer a loss.
Which is why state housing developments used to be built in greenfield areas instead of crammed into existing suburbs in an ideological fit of social engineering.
It's easy to solve.
If it has value to the owners as a heritage building, or a group of them together as a heritage area/suburb, then they can register a protective covenant on it, similar to the QEII covenant farmers use to protect native bush areas on their farms.
What you don't do is increase density in what Labour/local Govt. did without the agreement of the majority of the people it affects.
Not because it is a NIMBY issue but because these owners gave over power to the council to administer their areas on the owner's behalf ie not the council's behalf.
For Labour/council to go against this is an abdication of the council's social contract with their ratepayers and the owners have every right to be aggrieved.
But the power to remedy this still lies within the property owner's hand as they can still register a protective covenant against their property.
The reason they don't is that they are two-faced about it, ie they want to retain the ability to live their lives undisturbed in say a historic house in a historic area, but when they want to sell and move on, then they want the ability to sell at a super price to a developer, and to hell with their neighbours and neighbourhood.
I'm pretty sure the houses on the banner photo are on City Rise in Dunedin - aka the Bermuda Triangle, as there are a lot of the old houses broken up in to dire bedsits and flats and it's home to places like the night shelter.
Having done volunteer work in the area, a lot of the old places are horrible, and the original designs are beyond redemption: things like living spaces that face south, and afterthought bathrooms that are like plumbed-in dungeons.
Converting older houses to decent quality homes often costs more than building new, and if you have a house where the historic places trust has an interest, the limitations can be severe: it's a sport for the affluent.
However, on the edge of that same area, a new development has been built at medium density from modern materials on the site of a disused school.
Maybe we need to make some value judgements about what constitutes heritage: do we want cites that conform to middle class notions of attractiveness that tend to be most stridently voiced in, and dominate, planning process, or do we want cites that work for us? Interesting, vital places that function well are often not that chocolate-box pretty.
There should be a crown heritage fund for all heritage buildings. It buys the buildings and rents them or leaseholds them out for cashflow and capital.
If the fund can't afford a heritage building it gets redeveloped. That way the fund can decide which buildings are nationally important
The biggest issue is setting up the fund and making the right size to be self sustaining.
Otherwise I'm totally opposed to any development restrictions on a privately owned building.
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