So, a decision has been made by the Councillors of the WCC – let’s hope it was the right call. I’m not jumping for joy, I’m not down in the dumps, I’m just evaluating the decision. Hmmm. Pondering.
I actually watched a whole lot of the debate on the You Tube channel, live, which is a tedious thing, but vaguely instructive. They need to sort their video streaming out so that we have more to see – most of the figures of people talking are of the back of their heads or the sides of a partially hidden face – and you can’t see any of the detail printed on screen either, but still, it was sort-of useful to have in the background as a peaceful / mad cackling background noise.
Did I follow what they were doing? Not entirely, and if the Councillors were honest, I suspect that many of them were also a bit lost at times – voting on Amendments to Amendments to the original Motion – what applies, or what does not? Anyway, things were passed, and in some cases the Council agreed with what the Independent Commissioners Panel had proposed, while at other times, they rebelled and proposed something different. This may be a dangerous tactic, which could badly backfire, but we may not know this for a while.
Why do I say this? I’m sure that you know, but in a nutshell: because Minister Bishop has said that if Councils rubber stamp what the ICPs have proposed, he will stay out of it. On the other hand, he has threatened that if Council’s try and play silly buggers (almost a direct quote?) and make up their own minds, then the final decision will come down to him, and him alone. To me, this is playing a game of Russian Roulette with the baddest man in town – he has the only gun, and he is only putting it at your head, not his own, plus we are not sure how many bullets he has in the chamber. Terrible simile I’m sure, but that’s all I have time for at present. The WCC is literally dicing with death here – leaving decisions up to the notoriously “I don’t give a flying fuck what you think” Bishop is a tactic that could / might / almost certainly will backfire. He is not someone to be trusted with anything, not even the keys to the train set, let alone an entire city.
It therefore really worried me when one (unnamed, side-on) Councillor said things like “I don’t know why we are discussing this train through Khandallah, as the decision is up to Bishop anyway, so he alone will decide whether it is classified as a “high speed route” or not.” Leaving anything up to Bishop is a stupid decision, but leaving the future of a train line up to him is political suicide. Well, death-on-the-tracks suicide anyway – Bish is a man who has publicly stated that he is not really interested in railways except for the two Metro services – Auckland and Wellington. And while the Johnsonville Line is definitely part of the Wellington Metro services at present, this could change at the drop of a hat. That hat being a bishop’s mitred peak….
It is not just the future of the J’ville Line that is of concern – giving dominion to make decisions over the size and shape of the city to Minister Bishop is also an incredibly dodgy / stupid thing to do as well. The Council is taking the view that Bishop will just agree with the WCC decisions that usurp the results of the ICP, and rubber-stamp the new decisions, but honestly, if you give him the power, I believe he is just as likely to say “Bugger the lot of you, I’m in charge now and THIS is what will happen.”
What was also really concerning is the complete and utter lack of knowledge about many of the issues, by our elected officials – and by some of their advisors. Having not listened to many Council meetings before, I was fairly aghast at how dumb some of the mutterings were from the Mayor and Councillors. This was hugely apparent with some discussions over Architecture and Heritage, of which there was widespread cases of “I haven’t got a clue” from the Councillors and even the Council Officers as well. We had the future of Heritage pieces of Architecture being decided by various Councillors and whether their sister / mother / aunt had lived there, or what Councillors could see from their window if they looked out the window in the morning. Not very scientific basis for the future of the city, to be honest. And of course, when it came to the future of the Gordon Wilson flats, widespread confusion rained so hard that it was as if a whole plane load of covid-cases had fallen from the sky and rendered them all stupid.
For the record, and on the vague off-chance that one / any of the Council ever read this blog, most of what they discussed about the Gordon Wilson Flats was often incorrect. This blog has written about them several times before, it seems, including here, and here, and here, and here and of course also here.
One Councillor ventured the proposition that what made it famous / worth keeping is that it was approved under a National Government – while that is indeed true, that is not the thing that is heritage about the building. The REAL important thing is that all of the apartments are brilliant little double-height spaces, which allows the lower floor to have a entry corridor at the back, but the upper floor to have a window at front and back – significantly improving the life of anyone living in the building.
That’s something that you don’t get in modern pokey little flats like the awful Paddington, which is sadly just Shitsville in a brown paper bag.
The Council / Councillors were also really confused over why the Gordon Wilson flats were listed or whether there was anything else like them in town – or in the city – or in the country – or in the world even? “Wasn’t there something like them in Auckland ? In Grays Ave?” asked one Councillor? Another replied – “No, those were demolished.” The first one then explained that they were “absolutely sure that they had NOT been demolished, as they saw the last week.” I think that actually the REAL truth is that Kāinga Ora has just spent millions completely rebuilding them in Greys Ave in Auckland, so that they are new, and better, while still similar, but no, they are not the originals. Of course, KO could do the same here in Wellington, except that they sold them to the Vic Uni people, from memory, for $1. No, wait, was that the Teacher’s College? Never mind, they have destroyed the Teachers College anyway – it is clear that Vic Uni does not really give a shit about heritage modernist architecture.
Someone at the meeting was not even sure if they were talking about Gordon Wilson or Dixon St flats – they are physically very close together, but (apart from also being empty) they are architecturally, quite far apart.
More on this another day. I’ve got to go have dinner!
I have commented on Scoop re the Johnsonville Line but I will repeat myself here:
I do wish people would read the plan and consider all the evidence the Commissioners read and heard before commenting. Johnsonville is a Metropolitan Centre. It has been zoned for 35 metre (10 storey) buildings in the centre and 21 metres (6 storey) surrounding irrespective of the status of the train. Access to amenities within ten minutes walk of the other stations on the line is pretty insubstantial. The train has the same timetable as a regular bus, not a high-frequency bus such as the No 1 that runs every 10 minutes all day out of Johnsonville. The train runs every 15 minutes at peak time, half hourly during the day and hourly at night. I would suspect off-peak travellers living near this service won’t wait up to a hour for a train at night and will either Uber or bus or drive. The train takes 23 minutes to go 10km from Johnsonville to Wellington Station. That is 27kmph. The Hutt Valley and Kāpiti Lines average at least 50kmph. From most stations on the Johnsonville Line it is faster to take the bus. And the service can only ever have six carriages, although it currently only runs four, because one train has to wait in a passing bay for another train to pass. It can’t go faster because of passing places, seven tunnels and a very big hill. The Regional Rail Business Case proposes not one cent of spending to upgrade the Johnsonville Line. Waka Kotahi’s expert witness, Mr Cribbens, not commissioned by any interest group, told the Independent Hearing Panel that the service needed to run every fifteen minutes all day to be an RTS. The biggest users of the train are currently people from Ngaio and Crofton Downs but they are the end of the line going to the city so if the train is full at the Johnsonville end then they will just be out of luck. Upzoning around the Johnsonville stations will create traffic mayhem and more emissions from cars as the “rapid transit service” won’t have the capacity to get people where they want to go. Council officers admitted if the train reaches capacity the only option is put more buses on the roads, adding more traffic to the single lanes of traffic out of Ngaio and Khandallah. Calling the Johnsonville Train rapid transit does not make it so.
Julienz – I completely agree with what you are saying about the train – I’ve read your posts on Scoop – but at least there actually IS a train service, which most of the rest of us would love to have. The Johnsonville Line is a fantastic piece of old-skool engineering – slow, but beautiful scenic views out while you climb up the gully. By comparison, I am on a bus route in town, and that also is called a “rapid transit” route and scheduled for 42m high (14 storey plus) buildings, despite almost every bus getting mired in traffic all day long and double so at rush hour. So what is your argument? That you are hard done by? Sorry, I don’t buy that.
I could have slapped the (unknown) Councillor who bleated (once again) about turning the Johnsonville Line into a busway, which is one of the more moronic utterances I heard that day. I believe that this would simply not work. Buses are bigger than trains, and carry less people. Problems around passing bays would exist as much as before, or more likely more so. Tunnels would all need to be closed off, ripped apart and made larger, and personally I would not trust that route to a bus driver not to go over the edge. Which is why it has been rightfully ignored as a very silly thing, for many years. Do Councillors ever think before opening their mouths?
The 42m threshold is due to the City Centre zoning not rapid transit. Even our crazy councillors could not bring themselves to say there was rapid transit through Newtown given the demise of LGWM.
The idea of rapid transit is that it is turn up and go. If I turn up to the JVL outside peak time or anytime on the weekend then I can wait up to 30 minutes for a train. GWRC has sought funding to increase all other lines to 15 minutes all day but not Johnsonville. My argument is that the NPS-UD requires up-zoning where there is rapid transit on the basis that this will encourage mode-shift, JVL is a more like a standard bus, not rapid transit that will encourage mode-shift. Densifying where the transport is not up to the job will just create carmageddon.
The Johnsonville busway proposal may have its limitations but is not entirely stupid. The idea is for a guided busway with buses going one way in the morning, returning to J’ville by unclogged roads, they could go up the motorway counter to prevailing traffic flow and then rejoin the busway. Apart from the issue of the three level crossings they could proceed almost continuously and it’s probably easier to build a bus overpass than a train one and then they’d have a clear run. Direction would change at midday to the opposite direction so no issue of passing. There would need to be a bus going the opposite direction for school children but the 24 is already doing that job. The limitations seem to be capacity but greater frequency might overcome much of that.
Julienz – you say “The Johnsonville busway proposal may have its limitations but is not entirely stupid.”
Really? NOT entirely stupid? I beg to differ. As I noted in the comment just before you, “Buses are bigger than trains, and carry less people.” By bigger, I mean wider, but also significantly shorter. Carrying way less people is one significant problem. But the bigger problem is the extra width – you would need to completely pull apart and rebuild every tunnel along the route – you simply cannot drive a bus through a train tunnel. How many tunnels are there along the way? Lots of small ones, and one bigger, longer tunnel, if I remember? Any idea how hard it is to dig out a tunnel and make it bigger, while you’re inside it? And then repeat ten times ? Difficult, dangerous and expensive.
So the simple answer is….. No.
Please let us bury this proposal forever and shelve it under “Bad Ideas”.
The Idea of changing the Johnsonville line to either a guided busway or light rail got heavily thrashed around in the early 00s,
It was eventually declared to be dead by the Finance Minister of the day Michael Cullen, who basically said “its our railway and you can’t have it”
it was estimated a bus way conversion would have cost $115 million back then, and I would say its likely closer to $3-500 million now…. for a service with less capacity a poorer frequencies.
https://wellington.govt.nz/~/media/your-council/meetings/committees/strategy-and-policy-committee/2006/11/16/files/attachment1_letter_to_hon_mc.pdf?la=en
Points taken, Greenwelly and Nemo. JVL is not going to be rapid transit any time soon no matter how words are sliced and diced. GWRC has not proposed to fund any increase in frequency but has chosen to communicate this by omission rather than admitting it up front. Their statements of “JVL is rapid transit but we’re going to upgrade the other lines excluding JVL to 15 minute frequencies to make them rapid transit” has been a big contributor to misinformation about JVL. I suspect GWRC doesn’t really doesn’t want empty JVL trains puttering into Wellington Station every 15 minutes all day as they will just get in the way of the more important freight trains and the longer and faster commuter trains coming in from the other lines.
For the record, I was “the (unknown) Councillor who bleated (once again) about turning the Johnsonville Line into a busway”.
As for your opposition to the idea of turning the railway line into a busway, I agree that simply replacing the trains with buses travelling both ways will not work. But the proposed solution was to convert it into a one-way guided busway. It might be more productive to criticise the busway option that was proposed in 2006 rather than the option you thought was proposed.
You are correct that this idea was squashed by a government that simply said the city has to keep the railway line irrespective of whether conversion to a busway would or would not provide a better public transport service.
So North Wellington continues to be served by a slow essentially heritage railway line with stations far from most residents carrying just 1/3rd of PT commuters and a set of slow bus routes served by buses stuck in peak time traffic … and some still wonder why most people drive to work.
Thanks Councillor Randle – very glad to see that you are now inside the Council, doing some good work. And thank you very much for responding, it is great when this blog serves as a conduit for discussion between the powerful and the great unwashed.
The issue that I see primarily is as I have noted in my reply to Julienz above – that buses are wider than the tunnel, and that buses hold significantly less people than a train. Having worked previously in my life on tunnels, I have some experience in this – and you really have a hard time making tunnels wider once they are already there. For instance, while train tracks in NZ are just over One Metre wide (1067mm), the train body is 2.76m wide. NZ buses have axles that are typically over Two metres wide, with the bus body 2.85m wide including wing mirrors. While that sounds like it would be simple enough to just fold back the side mirrors and drive carefully up the tunnel with a few mm each side, the thing about a train is that it does not deviate from side to side as it is bound by the tracks. But a bus really needs a fair bit more each side, and the driver needs to Not have to fold their wing mirrors back each time they go through. Nibbling away at the edge of the tunnel to make it wider (say, minimum 300 each side?) would mean nibbling away at the very strongest part of the tunnel structure – each tunnel rebuild would mean a closure for a couple of months, and there probably are not enough specialist teams in the city to do more than one at a time. So the line would be closed for a year or so, and let’s face it, once people have had a closed public transport system for a year, they’re not likely to ever to come back. And heavens only think about what would happen if a bus crashed into the side of the tunnel – nearly physically impossible to get anything up there to pull out the damaged bus. Absolute nightmare.
And then there is the capacity. We all know that passengers prefer the smooth ride of a train to the jerky start stop of a bus, so by going to a bus you would already have lost a large chunk of patronage – and because each bus is just a third the length of a train, then there is another two-thirds of the patronage cut.
I’m sorry Clr Randle – I honestly think that expecting it to work if you change it to buses, is just a dream. Never going to work (in my humble opinion).
Another feature of the busway proposal was that it was one-way only – to the city in the morning peak, to Johnsonville in the afternoon one (can’t remember what was proposed off peak). So where you caught the bus would have depended on the time of day/day of the week, with stops barely walking distance apart in places. Get it wrong (which wouldn’t have been hard to do with such an illegible route structure, especially around direction-changing times) and you’d have a problem – and how to define a walking catchment would have been an interesting exercise! And of course those travelling against the peak (including schoolchildren) would lose all the benefits of a traffic-free route. Altogether, a very strange proposal – and nobody bothered to consult the line’s owner, being Ontrack at the time.
But what actually happened was also strange. A line that never sees anything beyond the units was resignalled as if it were part of the Main Trunk, with all the associated costs and complications, designed to handle heavy goods trains. In any sensible jurisdiction the opportunity would have been taken to replace the signalling with simple automatic points indicators, and the powered sets of points with simple spring-loaded ones, simplifying and speeding up the operation.
Could never happen, sceptics might say, but that’s precisely the way the modern trams in Croydon work on single-track sections (which used to be mainline railway). That way the costs and complexities of operation would be reduced, and possibilities for extension at both ends opened up. And it could actually have have happened: when the line through the Tawa tunnels replaced the Johnsonville line as the Main Trunk in 1937 the Railways offered the route to WCC for use by trams.
But neither nettle was grasped, sadly.
As for the suspicion that GWRC doesn’t want Jville trains to get in the way of freight or longer-distance trains, a little checking will show that Jville trains and freight trains use entirely different tracks, with no direct connection; and they share with other passenger trains only in Wellington Station platforms (and even there they have their own dedicated platform) Not an issue!.
I firstly must note that I only mentioned the 2006 NWPTS study option for a busway to highlight that I have been following the Johnsonville Line for many years … too many really.
But in reply to your concerns, the 2006 NWPTS Technical Appendicies (https://web.archive.org/web/20081014161746/http://gw.govt.nz/story_images/3090_AN00716Scenarios_s6154.pdf) stated: “This preliminary review indicates that it should be possible to operate buses through the tunnels. Because of the small clearances, buses would however require guidance through the tunnels to ensure they did not foul the tunnel walls.”
It should also be noted that the tunnels were lowered so they could fit the higher Matangi vehicles. So tunnel size is really not an issue as long as a guided buway was installed.
As for the question of capacity, one-way operation was stated to be 60 buses per hour which is a considerably higher capacity than 4 trains per hour (which is the maximum frequency possible for the current line configuration) even if the bus vehicle capacities is much smaller.
Fascinating, thank you Clr Randle. I’m reading it now
Interesting to see the awkward floor plans. Got one for Paddington you could slot in?
I’ll see what I can do
I can’t find ANY plans on line, and even units for sale don’t include a plan. But I’ve posted up some pictures of one typical unit that was for sale – even with a super-wide-angle lens they still look tiny.
There’s a floor plan here https://www.realestate.co.nz/42521399/residential/rent/ of the two bed configuration. I have been inside one. They are tiny.
Point to note here: this one is the WIDE version. Others are even smaller. Both sub-human, and badly planned, especially as shown here, with a proposed island kitchen bench with sink… really really dumb. Bathrooms too small to use, bedrooms too small to get changed in, outdoor space that doesn’t exist – along Taranaki St, all the supposed “front gardens” were changed to asphalt only – this is an appalling development. And even more abhorent that people are asking for $795 per week. Our housing is truly in a crisis state if people are willingly paying that.
Nemo – as exclaimed at the time (by yourself and many others), WCC should be ashamed that this was approved.
The total lack of design and poor space use is just amazing,
I mean the “Study” I mean why bother, its a oversized cupboard,
A Fridge in a Cupboard?, and yeah the island sink is just a crazy design,
Also the site plan of “your unit” looks like something that from “The Great Escape”
The only market that these makes sense is Tokyo.
Thankyou both. Quite inspiring to see how much quality can be packed into a given volume.
What I find totally mind blowing is the total lack of process, Councillors can apparently chuck in a proposal at the last minute have it voted on and if approved by the Minister it will sit in the plannings laws of Wellington for 20+ years,
The IHP documents are so impenetrable that it is impossible to check whether the things being proposed were actually rejected by the IHP, let alone whether they were supported by more than the original proposer,
In regard to Gordon Wilson, the Uni should not be given a free pass on this, they apparently didn’t even present to the panel… + they also appear to now have cart blanc to demolish the Stout building on Campus..
– If any of these councillors raise any objections to the Coalition governments fast track process, they should take a long look at their own actions…
Absolutely ! 100% agree.
In regards to Gordon Wilson Flats – It seems that Vic University and their online army’s only argument is that they’re ‘ugly’. Well any building would be if it was neglected for so long. Of course any student would snap one of those Maisonette’s up in a heartbeat if the building was restored. Alas, it’s only chance to become housing again looks doomed. What will be the result? Most likely a slick corporate entrance, scooter parking, a stairway and higher tuition fees to pay for it all. Congrats, y’all played yourselves. Demolition by neglect is cultural vandalism in my book.
This is hardly a fast track – the discussion has been going on since 2019
This post is fairly unhinged even for the standards of this site these days, and virtually the entire section about Bishop bears no relation to the legal reality. “What was also really concerning is the complete and utter lack of knowledge about many of the issues,” indeed.
Blue, fairly unhinged? Sure – I’m fairly busy and don’t have much time for Fish these days, so it may well be unhinged, but please let me know further – any part in particular that you find unhinged? Re Bishop – I’m only quoting what was alleged to have been said by him in the press. He has certainly said that if Councils do not vote for the ICP rulings, then he will make the decisions for them, and do whatever he can to free up more land for housing, in most cases on the periphery of cities, where builder/developers want to buy land and build more houses. Wellington being Wellington, we don’t have much periphery land except out in the Kapiti Coast, which is 2 or 3 cities away. WCC is banking on Bishop being amenable to what they are proposing, even though they are proposing something different to what the ICP has said. To me, that is a big risk to take, unless Tory Whanau has already made a deal with Bishop behind the scenes, yet we are led to believe that Whanau has been slow at talking to Government ministers – or has she been meeting behind closed doors without telling the public? Risky business…
In which case, why did you not link to anything? Bishop’s views sound absolutely counter to how you present them: https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/27-02-2024/a-housing-minister-for-the-new-city.
Also what is the ICP? the IHP? If you are going to be slating people for being ill informed you have to be deadly accurate yourself appears to be Blues point.
Captain Haddock – and Blue – I don’t actually have to do anything that either of you say – I’m not your lackey. But I’m also a bit concerned that we seem to be at cross-purposes with regard to what Chris Bishop may, or may not, have said. But it is worth noting that, from the Spinoff article above that you yourself provide the link to, that McManus notes what Bishop will do: “The Wellington District Plan will be Bishop’s first chance to prove himself on housing. He announced he would be the final decision maker on the plan, responsible for deciding between the independent hearings panel recommendations and any council amendments.” Ummm, so, that is EXACTLY what I said he would be doing.
“Also what is the ICP? the IHP? If you are going to be slating people for being ill informed you have to be deadly accurate yourself” Oh please. It’s not that difficult. Independent Commissioners in a Hearing Panel, call it what you want, it is the thing that has been going on around NZ, including Wellington, for the past year or two, in case anyone reading this has been sequestered under a rock.
What on earth have these buildings done to have their heritage listings revoked?
Gordon Wilson Flats, the Miramar Gas Tank, Emeny House, Khan House, Olympus Apartments, Wharenui Apartments, Robert Stout Building, Primitive Methodist Church, Johnsonville Masonic Hall, Star of the Sea Chapel.
Their parent’s didn’t love them enough. No, seriously, the owners of all these buildings had made submissions to the Council that the building had been subject to a Heritage listing, and that was either not their choice, or they had since changed their mind. Below – my guesses.
• Gordon Wilson Flats, actually well-deserving of its heritage status (it truly is a very historic building, but it has been badly neglected, and suffers from that most fatal of conditions: Bad Press.
• Miramar Gas Tank, listed as interesting heritage by HPT a few years back, because it harks back to the days when the city had ‘town gas’, and someone at HPT felt this was somethign worth keeping – but WingNut disagreed, and that’s final. Don’t argue with the Hobbit King.
• Emeny House, small and cute and in incredibly original condition, but it does restrict the owner from redeveloping their land.
• Khan House, no idea – but was this a Plishke building maybe?
• Olympus Apartments, i really like the Olympus Apartments building, but i think they have similar problems as Wharenui, noted below.
• Wharenui Apartments, which is a fantastic apartment building, but heritage bods have apparently stopped them from doing useful things to the building like install double glazing units. At least, that’s what councillor Nicola Young says her sister told her.
• Robert Stout Building, the Uni want to demolish it and build something bigger there one day.
• Primitive Methodist Church, honestly, I’ve never heard of it. But I quite like the idea of Primitive Methodists, as opposed to Sophisticated Anglicans, or Anguished Catholics.
• Johnsonville Masonic Hall, just like the town it is in, it is small, low-rise, and really boring. Time for a major new rebuild, for both the Hall and the Mall.
• Star of the Sea Chapel, isn’t this another building ‘saved’ by Jackson? Is this the same as Stellar Maris? I think it is the same thing. From memory, PJ wanted to do something with it (turn it into a recording studio or something?) but some tit at the Council said no.
The Miramar gas tank was never used for town gas supply. It was built in the twenties by British Imperial Oil for petrol storage.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/130639235/the-wellington-city-council-is-proposing-heritage-protection-for-this-rusty-storage-tank
It’s not very different from the more recent tanks at Seaview.
The gas works where coal gas was manufactured were further south, just through the cutting near Miramar wharf, on the south side of Miramar Ave. The storage there was in a gasometer, where the walls of the tank could rise & fall depending on the amount of gas in it.
Thank you William – brilliant feedback, and to me, even more reason to remove its Heritage status. Gasometer’s are great, because of the action and all that, but a petrol tank for BP ? I could do without that in my life. Although I am wondering – how safe would that have been? It is massive – imagining it filled with petrol – and catching fire, would have been a huge explosion.
I’m still marvelling at the thought of Gasometers though. Incredible that they worked at all really…
nemo – Kahn House is a modernist Plischke house on a brow in Ngaio. I believe the owner’s added double glazing. It seems safe for now, but of course in the future it can be bowled and 3 houses added.
Miramar Gast Tank – It already had a useful second life of sorts as a renovated post-modern cafe and shop for the California Garden Center. It looks neglected now.
Star of the Sea Chapel – Not sure what PJ intends to do here (maybe an addition as the site is huge) but it won’t be affordable housing in Seatoun that’s for sure.
In fact by my calculations none of these Heritage sites will result in the additional of any housing so I’m not sure what the cheering was about when they voted to de-list. Seems that anything old is ‘bad’.
Thank you YTC – yes, of course – I thought that surely they can’t mean THE Kahn house – but it seems therefore that they do. I think the days of having a Heritage listing are clearly seen by some as too restrictive, instead of as a mark of a something special.
Methinks we need a better system than we have at present. Its all a bit arse about face.
Councillor Ben McNulty put forward the amendment to remove heritage buildings. Each building was voted on separately. The results are here:
Gordon Wilson Flats – Passed 16-2 – It seems that most Councillors have bought the Uni’s line that these are too far gone to restore.
Miramar Gas Tank – Passed 18-0 – I think we can safely say that none of the Councillors has much sympathy for heritage gas tanks
Emeny House – Passed 13-5 – Evidently, about a third of the Counsellors think that arguably there is something worthy of heritage in the Emeny house – very different from the first two
Kahn House – Passed 12-5
Olympus Apartments – Passed 12-6
Wharenui Apartments – Passed 15-3 – Nicola Young’s story of her sister’s double glazing must have really struck a chord.
Robert Stout building – Passed 13-5
Primitive Methodist Church – Passed 12-6
Johnsonville Masonic Hall – Passed 13-5
Star of the Sea Chapel – Passed 12-6
Let’s see how many get approved by Minister Bishop.
He doesn’t make these decisions sitting in his office alone, ( despite what many people think)
There will be advice to him from the MfE ( He’s making the decision as part of the RMA) , )
Also with the demolition of its “twin” in Auckland” this remains the last example of this style in NZ?
I guess you’re right – he probably just takes the advice of his officials, who have themselves done all the hard work and actually know what they are talking about. But then again, all Ministers are allowed to make their own decisions, sometimes against Officials advice, so honestly, apart from Blue above, who knows what will happen?
An update from Bish on his Mish with the Wellington District plan
“In Wellington’s case, the City Council rejected many of the Independent Hearings Panel recommendations, and instead adopted many of their own.
That landed in my inbox on Tuesday this week. I now have to follow a very careful process where I consider the Council’s recommendations to me, and I will be taking advice from officials on that.
I will then make the final decision on whether the Council’s recommendations should be followed or those of the Independent Hearing Panel.
I’m expecting to receive that advice in mid-April and I intend to make my decisions promptly after that.”
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/speech-property-council-new-zealand-residential-development-summit
The owner of Emeny House (and I presume the other private dwellings) was more interested in removing the heritage status so they could safely remove the chimney and make non-cosmetic changes that make the existing building more comfortable if this article still holds: https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/home-property/house-of-the-week/84710927/house-of-the-week-118yearold-wellington-villa
Personally I think it’s time to let the Gordon Wilson flats go – it would be amazing if some developer could swoop in and renovate and earthquake strengthen them, but everyone with the kind of money that could do it has looked at it and decided not to. Kainga Ora already decided they could provide more housing to meet specific needs if they put the money elsewhere (whether they’re achieving this or not is another matter), and private developers found it an uncommercial proposition. They were a brilliantly designed solution to meet a need at the time, but without continual investment they no longer meet what the city needs. The council’s decision there is very consistent with enabling development where it can happen, and not putting undue effort where it is going to be wasted.
Offcuts – and that is a damning situation for the Heritage community – that they make it SOOOO difficult and expensive and heartbreakingly time-wasting for people with Heritage to actually do sustainable work to their Heritage – every single house in Wellington that still has a brick chimney should be PAID by Heritage NZ and the WCC to physically remove their brick chimneys, BEFORE the big one, not wait till after it.
HPT – sort your life out @!
regarding the Gordon Wilson Flats. Chris Cochran, conservation architect, wrote an excellent letter to the editor published 10 November 2022. It read,
‘Wonderful to see Victoria University promoting its “Heritage Open day” in half page advertisements in the Dominion Post (Nov 4). These ads have featured a photo of its ivy-covered Hunter Building, the heart of the university: this is a category 1 building that, despite being close to demolition in the 1990’s, is now rightly celebrated.
Following this theme, the university should extend similar care to its modernist heritage, the Category 1 Gordon Wilson Flats on The Terrace, whose listing for protection on the District Plan has been confirmed by the Environment Court.
The building is being scandalously neglected, its conservation and adaptation becoming more challenging as time drags on. It could be a stunning heritage asset of the university, and sought after student accommodation in times of a chronic housing shortage.
It would be as strong proclamation of the university’s commitment not only to heritage, but to carbon neutrality too, the greenest building for that site being the one that is standing there today.
Offcuts: you state that ‘private developers found it an uncommercial proposition’. What is your basis for that claim? To my knowledge VUW purchased it from Housing NZ in 2014 and it was never offered to the open market. On purchase VUW immediately applied for the zoning to be changed from Residential to Institutional and to remove its heritage status.
Apologies Stuart, you are right – I had misremembered who argued as to the supposedly uneconomic nature of redeveloping the Gordon Wilson Building. It looks like the University offer actually prevented it from being put on the market (iwi’s right of first refusal would have applied if it were to be sold to a non-Crown landlord). So private developers have never had a look-in.
Although would iwi have had the $$$ or the inclination to do anything other than pull it down as well?
Thanks Stuart – absolutely agree with this : “The building is being scandalously neglected, its conservation and adaptation becoming more challenging as time drags on. It could be a stunning heritage asset of the university, and sought after student accommodation in times of a chronic housing shortage.” Sadly, I think that the debacle over the Town Hall and the Library means that it has no chance of surviving, and I’m sure that the cash-strapped University will miraculously find some money to pay for its demolition, very soon, as they won’t want to miss this chance. Probably at least a decade or two before they build anything to replace it.
There is a bigger debate to have here, which is the whole “demolition by neglect” question. Not just Gordon Wilson flats, but also McLean State flats, Dixon St Flats, etc. Another day perhaps.
I cant reply inline, but my understanding is it would go to the minister either way unless wcc accepted all of the ihps recs. Including protecting the gas tank and upzoning kilbirnie without consultation, both of which all councilors opposed. It may have gone up anyway! I’m no expert.
Bishop took over – it was going to be Penny Simmonds, not sure why anyone would prefer her, given the fortnight she has had.
My view is the honest position is that literally noone understands the entirety of the process, the 4000 plus pages of the dp and how that interacts with the 6 year process that begun with the spatial plan. The process is highy flawed, overly complex and so critiques of individuals actions/interpretations should keep that in mind. My view is that it’s complexity is anti democratic.