Pt Chevalier Times No. 29

7/28/2019 Pt Chevalier Times No. 29

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Newsletter for the Point Chevalier Historical Society

No. 29, April 2013 sites.google.com/site/pointchevalierhistory/

c| V{xt|x Times

CalendarMeetings at Horticultural Centre2013

NOTEDAY MEETINGS THIS YEAR ON 3RD THURSDAY

18 April 10.30 am Colin Prince on Auckland Fire Brigade Historical Society20 June 10.30 am Eric Kearney on The Civic Theatre

An apology to our members

Dear Members,

To all those members who were inconvenienced by the late cancellation of our February meeting

can we say a very big sorry! The Committee were horrified to arrive at the Hall and find it already

in use. We felt there was no alternate to postponing our meeting as the space offered to us then

was very small & very stuffy. A particular apology is made to our guest speaker, Lisa, and we will

reschedule her talk for later in the year.

The hall was inadvertently double booked by the Horticultural Councils booking officer (who

accidentally put us down for an evening meeting). He has assured us that the remaining bookings

for 2013 are as requested.

These are

The Committee hope that this upsetting start to the year can be put behind us and that the rest

of 2013 will be greatly enjoyed by everyone.

On behalf of the Committee,

Yours sincerely,

Jenny Wilton (Sec)

18 April, 20 June, 15 August, 17 October, 21 November (all 10.30am).


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The following is bits from a report on the AucklandCouncil Unitary Plans implications for Point Chevalier,

produced in Cameron Griegs email newsletter recently.Thanks Cam for permission to publish here.

Responding to a call for a volunteer to write a summaryof the Unitary Plan and how it affects us, the following

has been written by one of our residents, Jenny Gibbs, to

help us all through the Unitary Plan maze. To give youan idea of how appreciative you should be, the plan isover 1500 pages - so to get it to this digestible format has

taken a great deal of reading, interpreting and editing, notto mention a lot of phone calls to Council for clarifica-

tion. I have added a few extra bits as well, with Jenny'sapproval, where I felt something extra needed saying.

Jenny is not a lawyer/planner/politician, and neither am

I, but we have spent many hours trying to lock down the

facts as best we could. We had a zero starting point twoweeks ago but as Jenny says "I wanted to do the sum-mary so that we can all be better informed and consider

the type of suburb we want to live/ work/ play in for thefuture and maybe even help to shape it. I hope the sum-

mary, at the very least provokes discussion, and at thevery best enables a corporate response we can live

with." We apologise in advance if we have made any

errors, but have tried to be as accurate as we could. Iemphasize it is just one opinion, from some relative

novices.

The vast majority of the suburb has been zoned MixedHousing, which in the words of the Council "will en-courage a mix of detached, semi-detached and attached

dwellings, units, town houses, terraced houses and small

scale apartment buildings." The zone dominates muchof greater Auckland too as you will see.

How do we as a suburb respond?I've already received mail from people who are worried

what it all means and want to know more. I've also

The Unitary Plan

and Pt Chevalier

received mail from people who are positive and thinkthat if it means Auckland doesn't endlessly spread out

then that is a good thing.

Council is asking for feedback, but given the whole

plan is weighted so heavily in favour of intensificationand development, I'd suggest it will be difficult to justsay NO, even if you want to.

After reading this document and thinking about the

Point Chevalier you would like to see in the future, I

strongly urge you to take action by:

1. Giving your feedback to the Council through theironline feedback form. You only have until 31stMay to let them know what you think (Remember

this is broken up with school holidays!). The feed-

back form is easy to fill in. One of the questionsthey ask is Please provide your feedback on the

aspects of the draft Auckland Unitary Plan youwould like to see changed and why.

2. Providing your feedbackto [email protected] (stands for Point

Chev Unitary Plan Feedback) - include your streetname so we can match location with emotion, and

try to bring those with common concerns to-gether.

Providing your feedback to the Facebook pagewww.facebook.com/TheUnitaryPlanWhatPointChevalierThinks

What is the Unitary Plan?The Unitary Plan has been developed as a tool to

deliver the Auckland Plan, which is the 30-year planand vision to make Auckland The worlds most live-

able city. The Unitary Plan replaces 12 existing dis-

trict and regional plans and sets out what can be builtand where.

It is the rulebook that shapes how Auckland grows

should it grow outwards into more urban sprawl, or

should it grow upwards and condense any growth intoour existing city parameters? This plan very strongly

paves the way for the latter: a more compact Auckland.

Pt Chevalier Historical Society

Minutes of meeting Thursday 21st

March 2013

Auckland Horticultural Council Rooms

Meeting started at 7.30 pm. Present: 18 people

Apologies: V.Longworth, L.Truttman

President : drew members attention to need for new name for NZ Federation Historical Societies-suggestion isit is changed to NZ Federation Historical and Heritage Societies

Guest speaker: Des Gate on The age of the trams

Meeting concluded : 9.00pm


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In my opinion it is a good thing that Auckland Councilare planning for growth rather than simply reacting to it.It is a progressive and extremely bold approach and we,as Aucklanders, will inevitably need to reconsider the

way we use our land. However, Auckland Council has

developed this for the entire Auckland area and just howmuch thought and consideration has been given to our

peninsula is unknown. I have spoken to Council and

Board representatives who have indicated that a corpo-rate response from Point Chevalier will be valuable in

influencing the way Point Chevalier is shaped. There isscope to change the proposed zonings if we can present aunified alternative.

The Melbourne experience

An architect friend has relayed that a lot of what hasbeen proposed in the Unitary PLan is based in part onMelbourne. Anecdotally, there what has happened isthat a developer will analyse a particular group of sec-

tions in detail, and come up with some scenarios that areeconomic, then send someone in on a certain day andoffer over the market valuations to that select target

group, and buy up multiple adjacent sections where theysee the right mix of potential for large scale develop-

ment. This is a clear likelihood.

Overlays

Overlays are special rules that can be applied to areas inaddition to the Zone Rules to allow for a whole host of

regional and local considerations such as infrastructure

corridors, airport approach paths, character, etc . Theoverlays relevant to history and character issues are of

interest, as to us, the character of Point Chev comes fromthe buildings we have, and we are not sure how this

overlay will be applied. We may think Point Chev is

architecturally and historically significant - how do weknow if Council does, and what clues do we have to howthey will determine this? And if they don't think it is,then demolishing is easy. It's a very important issue.

The Historical and Character Overlays that could be

applied in Point Chev:

Maori Land (we have none)

Sites of significance to Mana Whenua (none identi-

fied)

Historic Heritage Place

Historic Character area

Historic Character areas subject to investigation

Pre 1944 demolition control area

But Point Chevalier has only had the 'Pre 1944 demoli-

tion control' overlay applied. I am also told by Councilthat the Historic specialists have not yet performed an

assessment of Point Chevalier and, given all the workwhich will likely fall out of the Unitary Plan, it isunlikely to be assessed for another few years. What this

means is that if, as a community we want to negotiate the

parameters of the zones, it is unlikely to be on an historicbasis given that an assessment would be so far away.

How will Pre 1944 demolition control be assessed?

Demolition of a pre 1944 building requires a RestrictedDiscretionary Consent. I called Council about this and

they say it means that much of Point Chevalier wont be

able to be easily developed.

The criteria for which the Restricted Discretionary con-sents will be assessed can be found in Clause4.4.3.5.2.2. This says "Whether the building is of suffi-

cient quality to be included as historic character by rea-son of being part of:

a. a coherent repetition of buildings of similar styles

which:

i. have architectural valueii. were constructed prior to 1944

iii. contribute significantly to the distinctive quality ofthe neighbourhood or streetscape character"Similar rules for adding a house to the rear of an existing

pre 1944 house.

"If the building meets the criteria above, it must be as-

sessed against the following criteria to determinewhether to approve or decline the application for demoli-

tion or removal:a.the intrinsic character and value of the existing build-

ing, irrespective of age, and its contribution to street-

scape character

b. the heritage value of the building by reference to itsarchitectural style, whether as an exemplar of the type or

as being representative of typec. the integrity of the building in its current state, having

regard to its architectural form and style and authenticityof its component parts

d. its relationship to other adjacent buildings, whether it

contributes to a group in such a way that its loss wouldresult in the loss of a character value attributable to the

groupe. its contribution to streetscape character by reference tosurrounds within the site, and/or to the public street, and/

or relationships to open space shared with adjacent build-

ingsf. the practicability and cost of any necessary rehabilita-

tion, and the inability to achieve reasonable amenity foroccupants and reasonable compliance with any require-

ment of the Building Act."

So it seems that there will be consideration of Pre 1944character issues, but this is such a key issue how do weknow now what is considered of value and therefore

should be retained? Council has already determined that

we are not a Heritage area, nor is Point Chev pendinginvestigation, yet we feel there are many streets where

there are wonderful examples of buildings of their timelined up next door to each other. We don't want to wait

for the first resource consent hearing to find what the real

criteria are.


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Next issue due out

May 2013Contact Lisa Truttman (editor) :

19 Methuen Road, Avondale, Auckland 0600, phone(09) 828-8494

or email [email protected]

Membership of the Point Chevalier

Historical Society

Membership is open to all with an interest in our areas history, and costs only $10 per person. This entitles you tovote at our meetings, and to receive mailed copies of the Point Chevalier Times.Send cheques to: Pt Chevalier Historical Society, C/- 119C Hutchinson Avenue

New Lynn, Auckland 0600

Your membership fees mean that we can keep publishing thePoint Chevalier Times. Your support would be

appreciated.

5. Summary: What could it mean for Point Cheva-

lier?

Quality

"Will these changes litter Point Chevalier with uglyapartment blocks?" seems to be the most common

fear. The plan suggests quite the opposite and it doesgive a great deal of attention to its desire to ensure qual-ity, but it fails to say how! Indeed the Design State-

ment guidelines (which as I understand it affects theblocks with greater than 5 dwellings and which I think,

though I dont want to presume, is the same thing as the

Auckland Design Manual??) wont even be finaliseduntil the Unitary Plan has been notified! The Unitary

Plan itself sets out the rules (as Ive relayed them in thetable above) but thats as far as it seems to go legally.

The Unitary Plan directs you to the Auckland DesignManual (1.10 and 3.2.1) but this is NOT a rulebook likethe Unitary Plan, it is simply a guide and has no statu-

tory obligation. I fear that the Unitary Plans rules onroom sizes, window sizes and minimum dwelling sizes(30m2!), for example, will do little to ensure quality

building, quality materials and quality design and visual

appeal. If I was a developer interested solely in the bottom-line profit to be made from a potential development, I doubt I

would pay too much attention to the Auckland Design Man-ual because there is nothing requiring me to do so. I have

heard the argument that developers will be market driven to

provide apartments that people want to live in. But actually,in terms of apartments, the people buying them are likely to

be investors concerned more about the rental return than the

design. Given Aucklands history of horrendously ugly apart-ment blocks, this, for me, is of great concern.

Documents

Pt Chevalier Times No. 29