Heritage protection

There has been some discussion in the media this week regarding private homes being listed in district plans as heritage buildings. I have some sympathy with owners objecting to having to seek resource consent to do alterations or renovations or change colour-schemes for their houses.

But I also think that if councils had acted earlier on listing significant buildings in district plans we might have had better "maintenance" solutions for a number of Scott buildings, including the re-roofing of both the Futuna Chapel and Our Lady of Lourdes, and the replacement of the coloured acrylic windows with clear glass in St Joseph the Worker in Turangi, all of which have buggered up a lovely feature of each building.

It seems important to me that district councils and the Historic Places Trust take a more active role in protecting 20th century buildings, before ill-considered alterations stuff them. By just recognising that a building is significant we go some way to encouraging owners to think twice before ripping out the wooden joinery and replacing it with aluminium, or ripping off a tiled or stainless steel roof and replacing it with something inferior.


The Futuna roof, before (left) and after (right).


Our Lady of Lourdes, before and after.