22 September, 2021

Victoria Rd buildings set for heritage downgrade

In another blow to heritage protection in Devonport, most of the village’s main-street commercial buildings will lose their A listing under an Auckland Council review.

The Masonic Tavern building should have been stripped of any heritage status and Devonport’s historic Memorial Drive should be among sites to lose their A listing, according to the draft review obtained by the Flagstaff under the Official Information Act.

The number of A-listed heritage buildings and sites in Devonport has been slashed from 43 to nine in the council review.

A number of sites marked by plaques and other commemorations along the Devonport waterfront should be taken off Auckland Council’s heritage list all together, the review says.

Many residents would not have heard of four category-A sites recommended in the review.

• 

• 

• 

All of Devonport’s commercial heritage buildings except the Esplanade Hotel and the Victoria Theatre will have their listings drop from A to B in the Auckland Unitary Plan including: Alison’s Buildings at 73-79 Victoria Rd; The Devonia Building at 61-67 Victoria Rd; the former Bank of New Zealand at 14 Victoria Rd (now occupied by The Patriot pub); the former Post Office at 10 Victoria Rd; Mays Buildings at 5-15 and 19 Victoria Rd; the former Devonport Post Office and former Devonport Borough Council building at 3 Victoria Rd, and the former shop and Porterhouse Blue Restaurant at 58 Calliope Rd. The former Dudding’s Store at 335 Lake Rd, Hauraki Corner, will also be downgraded.

Campaigners will fight Vic Rd downgrade

Devonport Heritage aims to continue fighting for A-list protection for the commercial buildings downgraded in the heritage review.

Council officers met with the heritage group as part of the review, when it advocated for Elizabeth House and the Esplanade Hotel to be added to the A list, said group chair Margot McRae. “We were less successful with our commercial buildings and our churches,” McRae said.

“We fought hard for St Pauls and Holy Trinity to be included in the A-list.”

While many of the commercial buildings were not “nationally significant”, as required to meet the criteria, the heritage buildings on Victoria Rd should be classified together as a “heritage area” as had been applied to part of the Onehunga business district and the Upland Rd shops in Remuera, she said.

A-listed buildings cannot be demolished. While B-listed buildings had substantial protections from demolition, what could happen behind the building frontages was a concern, McRae said. If four-storey or higher apartments were built behind the Victoria Rd buildings the historic fabric of the buildings – and the street – could be destroyed.

McRae was unsurprised the Masonic Tavern had been delisted: “we have always regarded what happened there as a replica and we don’t support replicas.” The Group houses that were A-listed were important, she said, but the public had little interaction with them.

Just nine local sites make the A-list grade

Only nine buildings and sites on the Devonport peninsula are worthy of A heritage listing in the Auckland Unitary Plan, according to the council review.

These are:

• The Victoria Theatre on Victoria Rd: which “has historical value as an example of a nationally rare heritage place. The Victoria Theatre was the second purpose-built cinema in New Zealand and is the oldest remaining purpose-built cinema in Australasia.”

• The Esplanade Hotel on Victoria Rd, was built in 1902/3 and represents important aspects of national, regional or local history. The site has been continuously used for hotel accommodation since 1864.

• Elizabeth House at 5 King Edward Pde, now in apartments, is nationally and regionally significant for its use as a boarding hotel from 1911-1951, and as the barracks for Navy Wrens from 1952-1977.

• Rotherham House, 27a Rutland Rd, Stanley Bay; First House, 20 Northboro Rd, Hauraki; and Second House, 18 Northboro Rd, Hauraki – nationally significant examples of houses designed by the Group Architects in the early 1950s, and representative of New Zealand developing its own built identity.

• The World War I memorial at Windsor Reserve, outside the Devonport Library, unveiled in 1924, and viewed as having considerable national significance. (The Victoria Theatre, the Esplanade and the war memorial are also “category 1 places” on the New Zealand Heritage list.)

• The Te Puna springs site at Torpedo Bay, King Edward Pde, was a water source for early Maori. It has “multiple layers of significance” with links to the arrival of the Tainui, one of the voyaging canoes that landed in Aoteoroa during the mid-14th century.

• O’Neills Point Cemetery, Bayswater Ave, nationally and regionally significant as the main burial ground serving Devonport and Takapuna from the 1890s to the early 2000s and also the resting place of more than 20 Pakeha, Maori and Pacific Island soldiers connected to the Narrow Neck military camp who died in 1918-19 from the influenza pandemic.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

The Masonic: consigned to the dustbin of history

The Masonic Tavern building should be stripped of its heritage status in the Auckland Unitary Plan – with the reconstructed building regarded as a replica of no historic value, according to a council review.

Under North Shore City Council the building, which opened in 1866, had an A listing in the council’s heritage schedule.

It had operated as a public house until 2008, and was later developed into apartments.

The restoration has now been ruled a new build. “The Masonic Tavern is a two-storey timber commercial building constructed between 2011 and 2017,” said Rebecca Freeman, Auckland Council’s senior specialist in historic heritage, in a review completed in October 2020.

“It is a replica of the Masonic Hotel, which was located on the same site, and was constructed in 1866 and demolished in 2011 for a townhouse development,” said Freeman.

The building has “limited historic heritage significance” beyond its association with the original hotel building, she said.

“The Masonic Tavern does not meet the thresholds for scheduling as a Historic Place.” The development – while attempting to mimic how the hotel may have looked from the front in 1900 – actually destroyed heritage.

“Council records indicate that the corner tavern and 1883 extension along Church St, which were meant to be retained and restored, were demolished entirely (except, possibly for the front entrance, though this is unclear),” Freeman said.

“This was apparently necessary because the heritage fabric was so deteriorated that it could not be retained for restoration, and instead, the developer constructed replicas of the original buildings.

“Therefore, the only authentic heritage building on site is the 1861 boarding house, though this has been relocated within the property and subject to alterations,” Freeman’s report said.

In initial renovation consents, part of the Masonic’s downstairs was to be set aside as a cafe, but the developers successfully applied to have this changed to general commercial use. The downstairs is now offices, removing any social connection the building had with people.

“It is disconnected from the community and from its former uses as a public house and community hub and meeting place,” Freeman said.