Devonport Centre has Outstanding Heritage Value

We are proud to present the evaluation report for a proposed Historic Heritage Area that encompasses Takarunga Mt Victoria, Victoria Road, Windsor Reserve & Marine Square. This was prepared by Richard Reid, Jeremy Salmond and Dave Serjeant and has been presented to Auckland Council.

Executive summary

This draft report has been commissioned by Devonport Heritage (2017 Inc.), a local community group and incorporated society formed to celebrate and encourage heritage protection in Devonport. This report forms part of the Society’s submission to the proposed plan change detailing the Council’s formal response to the Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2021, due for public notification in August 2022.

The purpose of this report is to evaluate the Society’s proposed Historic Heritage Area (HHA) that encompasses Takarunga, the Devonport Main Street area and Windsor Reserve/Marine Square on the shoreline. Each area is recognised for its historic value already in the AUP, either in whole or in part, and the Society considers that this recognition would be strengthened by having all three areas within one HHA.

The proposed Devonport HHA is 16 hectares in area and encompasses multiple features and properties, including public land and the foreshore, cultural landscapes, buildings, structures, monuments, plantings, archaeological sites, traditional sites, sacred places, a townscape, streetscapes and parts of the residential settlement.

Takarunga sits at the head of this arrangement, forming the high ground, on the lower slopes of which the main street falls to the harbour. Victoria Road is the spine, along which key commercial, civic, community and religious buildings are concentrated. At the shoreline, Windsor Reserve and Marine Square open the main street to the water space of the city. This formalised sequence of features is unparalleled locally, regionally and nationally.

The number and density of Devonport’s scheduled historic heritage buildings along the main commercial street are also unparalleled locally and regionally. Furthermore, the proposed Devonport HHA contains a large number of other scheduled historic heritage sites and places, NZAA sites, an outstanding natural feature and a notable group of trees.

The number of scheduled historic heritage sites and places overall is unmatched for a Special Character Area. The only comparable local areas containing such a diverse and rich collection of historic heritage sites and places are the Princes Street Historic Heritage Area and Karangahape Road Historic Heritage Area.

On the basis that the proposed HHA has been assessed as outstanding by reference to three evaluation criteria and having considerable heritage value in four other criteria, this report concludes that the Devonport Historic Heritage Area overall has outstanding significance locally, regionally and nationally. It is the submission of this report that the proposed Devonport HHA meets the threshold for eligibility as a Historic Heritage Area.