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The Spinoff
08-07-2025
- Politics
- The Spinoff
This Wellington sea wall shows how our heritage rules are broken
The government wants to make it easier to remove protections on heritage buildings – but more change is needed. The Oriental Parade sea wall is a long, concrete barrier that curves around the stretch of Oriental Bay. It's a critical piece of infrastructure, first built in the 1920s to protect the adjacent houses and roads from storm surges. Its purpose is just as vital today – arguably more so, given the threat of rising sea levels due to climate change. But there's a problem: the sea wall is subject to heritage protections, because it is recognised as ' an important early civil engineering structure ' with ' a distinctive form and profile.' Those protections mean that any maintenance on the sea wall requires an expensive and lengthy resource consent application, and must use like-for-like materials in a way that recreates the original appearance. At a practical level, that means repairs are more difficult and expensive than they would otherwise need to be. That costs the council (and ratepayers) money. The Oriental Bay sea wall is not the only piece of heritage-protected infrastructure in Wellington. There's also the Evans Bay sea wall, the Lyall Bay sea wall, the Island Bay sea wall, the Seatoun Tunnel, the Karori Tunnel, the Northland Tunnel, the Hataitai Bus Tunnel, the Kelburn Viaduct and the retaining wall on Carlton Gore Road. All of these structures were significant engineering achievements at their time and are worth acknowledging. But they're all still in active use, and to most people, their value is practical, not historic or aesthetic. The heritage protections are a hindrance to their core purpose. Wellington is not the only city facing overly onerous heritage restrictions, but the issue is particularly salient in the capital because it has a greater number of heritage buildings (575 on the current council register), many of which have suffered earthquake damage. Wellington City Council has spent $380 million strengthening its heritage buildings over the past five years, mostly on the central library and town hall. Other publicly owned heritage buildings, such as the Gordon Wilson flats and Dixon St flats, have become prominent ruins. Several private building owners want their heritage protections removed so they can do simple renovations. Oh, and the city now has heritage protections on a rusty oil tank. Wellington City councillor Ben McNulty has been leading the charge on heritage reform. During last year's District Plan debate, he attempted to remove the heritage listings from 10 buildings (all of which were requested by the owners), including the Gordon Wilson flats and the rusty oil tank. After that move failed for process reasons, McNulty and Wellington mayor Tory Whanau wrote a letter to minister for RMA reform Chris Bishop asking for new legal powers to remove heritage protections. 'The decisions made by previous generations of heritage advocates are resulting in expensive legacy issues. Whilst the Council technically can remove properties from heritage listing under current legislative conditions, in practice it is an uncertain and risky pathway to delist a heritage building,' McNulty and Whanau wrote. The protection process There's a common misconception that Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga is responsible for imposing heritage protections – but that's not quite right. Heritage New Zealand identifies buildings for the national heritage list and advocates for their protection, but the actual legal restrictions kick in once a council 'schedules' the building in its District Plan. Many councils also employ in-house heritage experts to identify sites of local significance that aren't recognised by Heritage New Zealand. Most of Wellington's heritage sea walls fall into this category. Giving a building heritage protection is a relatively simple process and, in the past, it has been mostly uncontroversial. It's only years later, when the building owner wants to renovate or demolish it, that the heritage protections become a problem. But once a council has made a heritage decision, undoing it isn't so easy. Removing heritage protections requires a change to the District Plan, which involves an extensive process of public hearings and can be challenged in the environment court. Once a building has been heritage-scheduled by a council, its protection becomes a 'matter of national importance' under the Resource Management Act. This is an extremely high bar which planners and courts must consider and often trumps all other considerations. What could – and should – change Bishop has proposed creating a streamlined process to allow councils to remove heritage protections by a simple majority vote. This would be much faster and harder to challenge than the current system, as it would leave the final decision in the hands of the environment minister rather than the courts. Wellington City Council supported the streamlined delisting process in its submission on the RMA reform bill. Heritage New Zealand opposed the change, with chief executive Andrew Coleman writing that 'there is insufficient evidence to justify them and they have not been fully worked through'. The streamlined process would help to address some of the more egregious issues with the heritage regime, but it's really just a stopgap measure. Both the council and Heritage New Zealand agree that more is needed. The big issue that needs to be addressed is that pesky matter of 'national importance'. See, heritage isn't the only thing considered to be of national importance under the RMA. There's also: coastal environments, lakes and rivers, outstanding natural landscapes, areas of significant native bush, Māori connections to ancestral lands and water, protected customary rights, and risks of natural hazards. Many other relevant matters aren't listed, but might be locally important on any given decision: urban growth, access to housing, costs of repairs, safety risks, property rights, and, in the case of the heritage sea walls and tunnels, the ability to maintain and operate essential infrastructure. Under the current law, there is no guidance for how planners and courts should weigh up these competing matters. This means we end up in situations like the Gordon Wilson flats, where there are many obvious negatives of letting a decaying ruin continue to stand, but its heritage protections leave it stuck in a quagmire. There needs to be some kind of government-level directive which makes it clearer how each other those matters should be weighed against each other. Heritage protections aren't an inherently bad thing. The problem with the current system is that they are too blunt and inflexible. We can protect the buildings and structures that we collectively value, but we need to acknowledge that those protections have trade-offs – and sometimes, those trade-offs simply aren't worth it.
RNZ News
13-05-2025
- Automotive
- RNZ News
Wellington Council cops flak after damaged car sits in carpark for week
Photo: RNZ / Jazlyn Whales An abandoned car, which has sat damaged across multiple car parks on a busy Wellington street for more than a week, is due to be towed Tuesday. The silver sedan has broken windows, no plates and a piece of police tape wrapped around it, and is parked diagonally across two spaces by Waitangi Park on the corner of Oriental Parade and Herd Street. The police said, as the car wasn't blocking a roadway or posing a risk to the public, it was not their jurisdiction to tow it, but the Wellington City Council's. The council told RNZ on Tuesday as it wasn't a traffic safety hazard, it had been giving the owner of the vehicle time to organise its removal - but it had become clear that wasn't going to happen. The plan was to tow it and put it into storage that day. Local resident Jose Ubiaga said he had first seen the car a week ago, and he walked past it each morning. "I just assumed it would be there for a couple of days, not thinking a week later it would still be sitting there, damaged, taking up two parks, and looking like an eye-sore," he said. His post on social media had garnered a lot of angry comments from other Wellingtonians. He said it wasn't a good look. "It's little things like this that degrade our city, and don't help us at all," he said. "It's crazy that it's still there." Councillor Ben McNulty had responded to social media discussion about the car online, and said he had sent a "please explain" request to council staff earlier on Tuesday morning. Photo: RNZ / Jazlyn Whales He said it was clear they were aware of the car, as there was a yellow sticker on the windscreen. Usually, they waited a period of 48 hours for the owner to make contact, and then towed the vehicle. "It's just a billboard for council looking like it hasn't done it's job, because it hasn't on this one," he said. "You couldn't have put it in a much more prevalent spot in Wellington if you tried." But the council said as the car wasn't posing a safety risk - although its location had meant it had attracted a high amount of public interest - it had given the owner some extra leeway to remove it themselves. "It's obviously become clear that the owner isn't willing or able to do the job so we'll do it and aim to recover costs."
RNZ News
13-05-2025
- Automotive
- RNZ News
Wellington Council cops flak as after damaged car sits in carpark for week
Photo: RNZ / Jazlyn Whales An abandoned car, which has sat damaged across multiple car parks on a busy Wellington street for more than a week, is due to be towed Tuesday. The silver sedan has broken windows, no plates and a piece of police tape wrapped around it, and is parked diagonally across two spaces by Waitangi Park on the corner of Oriental Parade and Herd Street. The police said, as the car wasn't blocking a roadway or posing a risk to the public, it was not their jurisdiction to tow it, but the Wellington City Council's. The council told RNZ on Tuesday as it wasn't a traffic safety hazard, it had been giving the owner of the vehicle time to organise its removal - but it had become clear that wasn't going to happen. The plan was to tow it and put it into storage that day. Local resident Jose Ubiaga said he had first seen the car a week ago, and he walked past it each morning. "I just assumed it would be there for a couple of days, not thinking a week later it would still be sitting there, damaged, taking up two parks, and looking like an eye-sore," he said. His post on social media had garnered a lot of angry comments from other Wellingtonians. He said it wasn't a good look. "It's little things like this that degrade our city, and don't help us at all," he said. "It's crazy that it's still there." Councillor Ben McNulty had responded to social media discussion about the car online, and said he had sent a "please explain" request to council staff earlier on Tuesday morning. Photo: RNZ / Jazlyn Whales He said it was clear they were aware of the car, as there was a yellow sticker on the windscreen. Usually, they waited a period of 48 hours for the owner to make contact, and then towed the vehicle. "It's just a billboard for council looking like it hasn't done it's job, because it hasn't on this one," he said. "You couldn't have put it in a much more prevalent spot in Wellington if you tried." But the council said as the car wasn't posing a safety risk - although its location had meant it had attracted a high amount of public interest - it had given the owner some extra leeway to remove it themselves. "It's obviously become clear that the owner isn't willing or able to do the job so we'll do it and aim to recover costs."
RNZ News
13-05-2025
- Automotive
- RNZ News
Wellington Council cops as after damaged car sits in carpark for week
Photo: Supplied / Jazlyn Whales An abandoned car, which has sat damaged across multiple car parks on a busy Wellington street for more than a week, is due to be towed Tuesday. The silver sedan has broken windows, no plates and a piece of police tape wrapped around it, and is parked diagonally across two spaces by Waitangi Park on the corner of Oriental Parade and Herd Street. The police said, as the car wasn't blocking a roadway or posing a risk to the public, it was not their jurisdiction to tow it, but the Wellington City Council's. The council told RNZ on Tuesday as it wasn't a traffic safety hazard, it had been giving the owner of the vehicle time to organise its removal - but it had become clear that wasn't going to happen. The plan was to tow it and put it into storage that day. Local resident Jose Ubiaga said he had first seen the car a week ago, and he walked past it each morning. "I just assumed it would be there for a couple of days, not thinking a week later it would still be sitting there, damaged, taking up two parks, and looking like an eye-sore," he said. His post on social media had garnered a lot of angry comments from other Wellingtonians. He said it wasn't a good look. "It's little things like this that degrade our city, and don't help us at all," he said. "It's crazy that it's still there." Councillor Ben McNulty had responded to social media discussion about the car online, and said he had sent a "please explain" request to council staff earlier on Tuesday morning. Photo: Supplied / Jazlyn Whales He said it was clear they were aware of the car, as there was a yellow sticker on the windscreen. Usually, they waited a period of 48 hours for the owner to make contact, and then towed the vehicle. "It's just a billboard for council looking like it hasn't done it's job, because it hasn't on this one," he said. "You couldn't have put it in a much more prevalent spot in Wellington if you tried." But the council said as the car wasn't posing a safety risk - although its location had meant it had attracted a high amount of public interest - it had given the owner some extra leeway to remove it themselves. "It's obviously become clear that the owner isn't willing or able to do the job so we'll do it and aim to recover costs."
NZ Herald
01-05-2025
- Climate
- NZ Herald
Weather live updates: Emergency Management Minister speaks to media amid destructive wind and rain
Emergency Management Minister Mark Mitchell is speaking to media as destructive weather ravages the region. He will speak in Canterbury at 4pm. The press conference will be live streamed at the top of this story. Torrential rain has triggered a state of emergency in Canterbury's Selwyn District, where the Selwyn River threatens to cut off access to communities. Residents of Selwyn Huts have been told to self-evacuate due to rising floodwaters and ongoing slips. Meanwhile, MetService has issued a rare red wind warning for Wellington, with gusts of up to 140km/h expected to cause widespread damage, threaten lives, and severely disrupt transport and power across the capital. Selwyn District Council is advising people to avoid driving unless absolutely necessary and to conserve water, as key water supplies are under pressure. Several roads, including fords and key rural routes, have been closed due to surface flooding. Wellington's red alert - the highest level issued by Metservice - came into effect at 10am and will remain in place until 3am tomorrow. MetService warned the gales would peak this afternoon, particularly around the south coast and hilltops, before gradually easing overnight. 'Destructive winds will cause widespread damage including to powerlines and roofs,' MetService said. 'Flying debris and falling trees pose a threat to life. Dangerous driving conditions and significant disruption to transport and power supply are likely.' Residents are being urged to stay indoors or find sturdy shelter away from trees, avoid travel, and prepare for possible power and communication outages. Strong winds have already forced the cancellation of most flights in and out of Wellington Airport, with Air New Zealand, Jetstar, and Sounds Air grounding all services until at least 6pm. Ferry crossings on Cook Strait have also been cancelled, as swells reach up to seven metres. Average wind speeds at the airport have reached 87km/h, making it the windiest day in over a decade for the capital. Hutt City Council has urged residents to remain indoors, with flooding closing Port Rd and causing delays throughout the region. Wellington City Councillor Ben McNulty is urging locals to report storm-related damage via the council's FixIt app or by calling 04 499 4444. MetService says the deep low-pressure system driving the wild weather will start to ease on Friday, with more settled conditions forecast for the weekend.
