SUBMISSION FROM DEVONPORT HERITAGE ON DEVONPORT SPECIAL CHARACTER AREA

Devonport Heritage

1.1 Devonport Heritage 2017 Inc. is a community group originally formed in 1994 to celebrate and encourage heritage protection in Devonport. The society’s role is to promote awareness and appreciation of Devonport’s rich history and act as a lobby group for heritage protection and restoration.

The society arose from a highly engaged community that has, since the 1960’s, been active in recognising and lobbying for the protection of Devonport’s historic values.

It also encourages an understanding of the Special Character Area planning rules that apply to Devonport under the Unitary Plan.

1.2 Over the years we have made numerous submissions at resource consent hearings, council plan changes and on the Auckland Unitary Plan and the society is widely-recognised by council and residents as a forceful defender of Devonport historic identity. We enjoy wide local support and a petition to ‘Save Devonport’s Special Character Area’ has been signed by 2500 people.

Historical Devonport

1.3 Devonport is Auckland’s foremost heritage marine suburb with a rich vein of Māori archaeology and early European history, much of it still visible. The two volcanic cones of Takarunga and Maungauika dominate Devonport and together with the timber houses and the coast on three sides, they present an enduring relationship between mountain, sea, and housing.

1.4 This unique relationship between the geographic, historic, and built heritage gives Devonport special status as a place of national significance that is widely valued far beyond the shores of the suburb itself. This enduring historic presence means Devonport is a significant cultural landscape area.

1.5 Devonport’s historic value has long been recognised, first by the Devonport Borough Council and in 1995 by the North Shore City Council in its Residential 3 Built Heritage rules that controlled demolition and renovation.

1.6 Given the widespread change to the built environment that the MDRS enables across Auckland, Special Character Areas like Devonport are more important now than ever. Devonport’s historic integrity, harmony of scale and visual coherence has been long-recognised and has helped foster a strong community identity. The area deserves stronger recognition at a time when much of the city is changing so rapidly.

Risks to Special Character

1.7 Devonport is one part of the whole historic web of Auckland’s early timber housing suburbs that have forged the city’s identity. The value of these areas was recognised in the Auckland Unitary Plan and residents were confident that these well-preserved Victorian and Edwardian houses would be protected into the future.

1.8 Only 3.6% of Auckland’s housing is covered by the Special Character Area and the proposed reductions will have minimal impact on housing capacity. But it will lead to the eventual destruction of thousands of heritage homes which in turn will result in the loss of Auckland’s history and unique identity.

1.9 Deleting parts of the SCA’s across the city will adversely impact on the historic value of the areas and undermine the reasons they were given protection in the AUP. A character area needs to retain a coherence of scale and form if it is to succeed as a collective urban landscape. It will lead to a loss of confidence in the AUP.

2. The MDRS allows for more intensive three storey housing without resource consent and contains no design requirements for new housing to be sympathetic with the surrounding character area. This will result in 12 metre high, bulky buildings that will have a detrimental effect on the surrounding SCA.

2.1 The council’s methodology for assessing character houses is flawed. It requires houses to score 5 or 6 to be considered character-contributing and sets a benchmark of 75% or 66% for areas to remain in a SCA. This seems to be deliberately aimed at reducing the number of houses that can retain their protections. It is an arbitrary figure that sets a high threshold and was not a direction of the NPS-UD or the MDRS.

2.1 This method of assessing houses only, without reference to the wider context means the process is incomplete because it ignores other urban design matters which are fundamental to understanding special character. Important features of character areas like patterns of subdivision, historic forms and streetscapes have been ignored.

2.2 The survey of Devonport and elsewhere was unfinished because it was carried out by Google View and unsupported by site visits. This accentuates the deficiencies of the methodology because the surveyors could not make a full and proper assessment.

2.3 If the changes to Special Character become operative when the plan change is notified in August 2022, character houses will lose their protections and allowing them to be demolished from that date. This challenges the integrity of the AUP and contravenes Section 6 of the RMA.

It will result in houses deleted from the SCA being vulnerable to demolition even before the public is able to make submissions.

What We Propose

Retain all character overlays across the city.

2.4 Only 3.6% of Auckland’s housing is covered by the SCAs and the proposed reductions will have minimal impact on housing capacity.

2.5 Auckland’s character areas have a collective strength and a relationship to each other. They have strong similarities but also their own identities. Reducing and destroying some parts will affect the integrity of the whole. For instance, Devonport, Birkenhead and Northcote Point are linked as they are the city’s historic marine suburbs, and they work together to contribute to the city’s historic identity.

For Devonport

2.6 We oppose the deletion of parts of Vauxhall Road and Grove Road from the SCA.

2.7 Vauxhall Road is a long road leading north out of Devonport yet three sections of it have been treated in isolation from the rest.

The road connects the two beaches of Cheltenham and Narrowneck and as the council survey report states -

“the most prominent architectural style in the area are villas, transitional villas and bungalows.”

and

“Overall the Narrowneck survey area maintains in part a well-established and coherent suburban character of an early marine suburb”.

Yet it has been given an overall score of 54% high quality.

2.8 This demonstrates the flawed nature of the assessment method as the area contains the significant national historic site of Fort Takapuna, as well as many high-quality heritage houses. These in effect ‘lift’ the area and dominate the whole.

2.9 The Fort is a dominant landscape feature with a rich history as a lookout post, medical centre and training camp. It contains disappearing guns, barracks and underground fort. This huge cliff-top site is a popular visitor destination and anchors the historic nature of the area.

3.0 This area is in the Coastal Erosion Overlay and means there are only limited sites that can be up-zoned. The maps show a juxtaposition of different zonings that will create a type of ‘pepper-potting’ resulting in an inconsistency of building heights and designs.

3.1 Nearby Grove Road is dominated by high-quality, well restored character houses which at present dominate the non-character housing. Yet the maps show one side remains in the SCA while the other side is upzoned to Mixed Housing Urban. Yet both sides contain similar quality heritage houses.

This will result in an awkward conflict of higher density and heritage housing in one small, narrow street of only 17 houses. It will effectively destroy the street’s heritage value.

3.2 This also applies to the houses on the northern side of Vauxhall Road above Cheltenham Beach. While there some non-heritage houses and flats here they are dominated by the high-quality heritage homes and deleting this sub-area from the SCA will result in even more intrusive ‘pepper-potting’ of high density and character. (Appendix A - 126 Vauxhall Road).

3.3 It will begin the process of ‘death by a thousand cuts’ where dominant modern buildings that have no reference to the surrounding character will gradually diminish the coherence of the area and the significant history of Fort Takapuna.

3.4 While there are several non-heritage blocks of flats in these locations these provide the only low-cost housing in Devonport and are an important social amenity for the local population.

If these sites are deleted from the SCA they will be demolished and replaced with high-cost apartments and the area will lose its only affordable housing which defeats the purpose of the NPSUD and the MDRS.

This will result in the loss of lower-cost housing and the destruction of the character of the area.

We oppose the deletion of parts of Wairoa Road from the SCA

3.5 Wairoa Road forms the geographic boundary of Devonport’s SCA. South of the golf course is the boundary of ‘old Devonport’ where the SCA has been in place for 27 years.

While there are a number of non-heritage housing styles here, many older bungalows and villas are highly visible and contribute strongly to the general character of the area.

The coastal inundation overlay applies here and means only some rear sites have been deemed suitable for higher density.

However the council maps show that single Mixed Housing Urban sites are scattered amongst single house zone sites. This will create a disjointed and confusing set of zones and overlays and will result in a pepper-potting and inconsistent style of development.

While some sites here could be suitable for higher density or terraced development, it would need to include design standards to ensure new buildings complement the existing character.

We propose the Stanley Point Road Special Character Area being enlarged.

3.6 The boundary for the SCA should be expanded to include the houses at numbers 47, 49, 51, 59, 61A, 65, 67 and 74 Stanley Point Road as these houses contribute strongly to the heritage character of the area.

Collectively these houses contribute significantly to this coherent and distinct character area and warrant continuation in the SCA

3.7 Appendix B shows photos of four houses that score 5 or 6 in the survey maps.

• Number 61A, is an intact transitional bungalow

• Number 65 is a well-preserved transitional villa

• Number 67 is down a long driveway and is completely screened from the street by trees. It is a grand 1915 mansion of considerable architectural merit

• Nearby is 74 Stanley Point Road is a well-preserved bungalow built for Cyril Bassett, the only New Zealand soldier to be awarded the Victoria Cross at Gallipoli who lived here until his death. The house is of considerable historic and social importance.

We propose that Devonport’s Victoria Road commercial area, Windsor Reserve, Marine Square and Takarunga/Mt Victoria become an Historic Heritage Area.

3.8 The proposed historic heritage area encompasses Takarunga Mt Victoria, the commercial section of Victoria Road and Clarence Street, and Windsor Reserve and Marine Square.

This area is a central part of a densely concentrated and substantially intact relict of human occupation stretching from the pre-contact era through 150 years of European occupancy which has itself transitioned from rural to commercial use of the local landscape.

Devonport’s location on the north shore of the Waitemata Harbour is explained by its early connection to the former signal station located on Takarunga, and its function as the landing place for land-based travel north from Auckland City.

3.9 The historical constructed response of the centre to the native landscape and the physical and visual connections with the maunga, gives the proposed HHA very great landscape significance, both within itself and in the wider land and seascape.

4. The street is emphatically book-marked by the maunga in the north and Windsor Reserve and Marine Square at the meeting with the harbour in the south. The sea has always been part of the CBD character because of the manner in which the street expands into the expanse of the harbour as it approaches the Gulf. No other community in Auckland responds in this way to its natural geographical setting.

4.1 The consistency, density and quality of the surviving legacy of buildings, the coherence and attractiveness of the streetscape, together with the outstanding natural feature and cultural heritage that the town centre has built upon, reinforces the very high esteem in which the centre is held locally, and in the eyes of visitors from within NZ and beyond.

This area needs to be further protected in order to preserve it for the future.

4.2 After discussions with the Auckland Council heritage unit staff, we are finalising a draft evaluation for the inclusion of this area as a Historic Heritage Area which we will submit by 13 May.

Removal of Policy 3(d) identification being applied and rejection of potential for Terrace Housing and Apartment Block zoning around Devonport Town Centre

4.3 Policy 3 (d) of NPS-UD 2020 states as follows:

“within and adjacent to neighbourhood centre zones, local centre zones, and town centre zones (or equivalent), building heights and density of urban form commensurate with the level of commercial activity and community services.”

4.4 The Devonport central area has a Town Centre zoning. However, the level of commercial activity and community services, as referred to in the policy, are very much limited to serving the local population due to the peninsula location of the centre. Devonport is highly inaccessible because it has a single road link north, namely the notorious Lake Road.

This two-lane road is heavily congested, weekdays and at weekends and is a constant source of frustration for residents of Belmont, Bayswater and Devonport and those persons travelling to and from Devonport for employment, many of whom are Navy service people.

The ferry link to the city alone does not make Devonport accessible as most residents still need to drive or take buses northwards to work and schools.

4.5 Consequently, the building heights and density of urban form that is commensurate with the level of commercial activity and community services is low. A low level is consistent with the existing (and proposed) height limits applying as overlays to the Town Centre Zone which limit heights to a mixture of 9m and 13m.

4.6 Notwithstanding that conclusion with respect to Policy 3(d), the area identified as meeting the policy around the Devonport Town Centre contains significant heritage values as an existing qualifying criteria for exempting the area identified from upzoning. The details of this are as follows:

(i) The streets around Devonport’s town centre are the oldest streets in the area, dating from the earliest European settlement in the 1850’s.

(ii) Anne Street is considered the oldest street in Devonport. In the 1970’s residents fought to have its zoning changed from industrial to residential in order to preserve it for the future. It’s a street of mainly high quality, well-preserved cottages.

(iii) Rattray Street, Buchanan Street, Flagstaff Terrace and parts of King Edward Parade, Kerr Street and Calliope Road also contain high quality heritage houses with most homes here scoring 5 or 6 in the council survey. The survey described this area as having ‘a high degree of visual coherence and consistency, maintaining the suburban character of an early marine suburb.’

(iv) These historic values would be lost if even one 5 to 7 storey development takes place in their midst. These old and historic streets are fragile and any THAB developments here will have severe impacts.

(v) Policy 3d being applied here will create a conflict between zoning and the Special Character Overlay and height controls relating to Takarunga maunga, whereas the current zoning and overlays are consistent in their support for heritage matters. It may create a development opportunity for intensive housing by a developer who seeks to challenge the Special Character Area on a site by site case.

Collectively these houses contribute significantly to this coherent and distinct character area and warrant continuation in the SCA.

4.7 Improve Assessment Method

The assessment methodology could be made more robust by including houses that scored 4 as well as 5 and 6. If those scoring 4 were included, it would result in a more accurate assessment of an area’s character. An alternative method would be to change the criteria for retaining the SCA to 51% of an area to be character defining.

Council’s assessment needs to include site visits to all Special Character Areas.

4.8 Include Design Standards

Design standards need to be included in all new developments in SCAs as they are essential to ensure these areas retain their value and integrity. These should include requirements that new developments be complementary to the existing character features, scale and landscape.

4.9 New Term Necessary

We propose changing the term ‘special character area’ to ‘Heritage Character Area’. The present term is vague and does not adequately reflect the historic nature of the areas. The term Heritage Character would ensure the rationale behind the overlay is clearer and more understandable.

5. In Conclusion

The Council is facing a defining moment in the history and development of Auckland.

We call on council to adhere to the provisions of the AUP and make Special Character Areas a qualifying matter.

Any other decision will have a potentially ruinous effect on the historic areas of the city.

We ask that council recognises Devonport as a significant historic place of national importance and ensures that its unique identity is further protected for future generations.

……………….

( Two Attachments: Appendix A & B

We also refer council to the history of Devonport in the 2011 the North Shore Thematic Study for Auckland Council and a 1986 study of Victoria Road by Salmond Architects. These provide the background that Devonport, Birkenhead and Northcote Point have a rich and visible history and require on-going planning protection to prevent their identity and historic character being devalued).