Clarifying the absurdity

A couple days ago I pointed to NZIER's figures on the case for strengthening the Christchurch cathedral.

I think it's better to view this whole exercise as making clear what we'd need to believe if we wanted to believe that the regulatory apparatus surrounding the cathedral since 2011 is other than massively value destroying.

Recall that the Bishop wanted to demolish the cathedral and build a facility more in tune with current needs. Reinstating would be too expensive, and the final building not suitable for modern purpose.

A bunch of people who figured they knew better than the then-Bishop what to do with the Anglican Church's property decided that they would interfere. The Wizard. The Heritage People. All the stickybeaks who love to block anyone ever doing anything, but who won't stump the cash to give effect to their preferred views on things.

If you are happy to believe this set of things, then The Wizard and his cohort were right all along. If you don't believe these things, then the case for blocking the Bishop from running a bulldozer through the thing over a decade ago destroyed enormous value. 

• Revenue from climbing the tower will be 5-15 times higher than before the earthquake
• Revenue from the gift shop and cafe will be 1-3 times higher than before the earthquake
• A half a million people per year each get $5 to $10 in enjoyment benefits from having a look inside
• Visiting the museum gives each of 114k to 159k people per year $10 to $20 in enjoyment benefits
• There is no practicable way of charging for entry to either of those
• Regular churchgoers get $5-$10 in benefits from attending mass; special services provide $10-$20 in value
• There is also no practicable way of charging for these as the number of visitors would then fall
• Each of the 398k - 467k people in Christchurch get $2 to $20 in benefits from knowing the cathedral has been rebuilt and that they have the option to go and see it sometime. And $1 to $5 for each of the 4.8-5.3 million non-Christchurch New Zealanders
• And that it is also okay to count the value of the option when exercised (visiting) and the value of the option in the same tally of annual benefits. You might instead count only the value of attending in the year of attendance - exercising the option
• There is meaningful and policy-relevant benefit to people working on cathedral restoration over and above the wages they are paid, and they wouldn't otherwise be working on similar stonemasonry at, for example, the Arts Centre
• Each international tourist will spend between 0.1 and 0.5 extra nights in Christchurch because the Cathedral has been restored; at least half of this will be a shift from other NZ destinations, 0-50% of the extra nights will be net increases in total time spent in New Zealand. Oh - and spending by tourists should be judged on gross spend, not on profit from that spend. 

NZIER makes some of the problem really rather clear in Table 6. 

The largest portion of the benefits, dwarfing everything else, is non-use value that they deem to be of low reliability. The point estimate of $19.7m is more than half of their total quantified benefits of $32.4m. 

If don't believe that tourists are going to spend a lot of extra time in NZ because of the restored Cathedral, or that each and every Kiwi outside of Christchurch gets $1 to $5 in annual feel-good benefits about the Cathedral's restoration, then the government erred in blocking the Bishop from running the bulldozer through it. 

If the government is going to require the Anglicans to provide a reinstated cathedral, then the government should be the ones to front the cost. If the government believes the numbers in the NZIER report, then it should be happy to do so. 

If none of us believe those numbers, perhaps the Anglicans should be compensated for the stupidity they've been forced to bear here. I do not believe the numbers, but you have to believe numbers like these if you want to believe that this whole thing has been other than a horrible mistake. 

From where we are:

1. Void the heritage encumbrances on the site.
2. Tell the Anglicans how much money central government (and council, and crowdfunding) is willing to put toward different reinstatement options.
3. Let them bulldoze and build as they like if that's what they prefer instead. 

Update: hoisted from the comments on the "Afternoon roundup" post where I'd first linked the NZIER report, from Glenn Boyle:

Re the cathedral, these sorts of exercises are always difficult and hit-or-miss, but there are certainly some features of NZIER's report that caught my eye:

1. I'd love to see the parameter values used in the option valuation.
2. A discount rate of just 5% (essentially the riskfree rate) is interesting, especially given the costs are all incurred in 6 years but the benefits carry on for 40.
3. There is, apparently, no uncertainty about costs!

Just make it easy to delist buildings

My column in the weekend papers:

There is one other alternative. It is an alternative Wellington officials downplayed. But it is one that the council should take or that central government could progress instead.

Why not make it easy to remove buildings from the district plan?

A council needing legislation to address a local issue can propose a local bill. The Parliamentary Counsel Office can assist in drafting. An MP, who need not necessarily support the bill, puts their name to it. The bill is introduced and has its first reading on the third sitting day after introduction.

Wellington City Council could propose a local bill enabling the council to remove buildings from the district plan, or to pre-empt their listing, by a simple majority vote. The bill would make delisting nonjusticiable, with no opportunity for appeals or challenge. It would deem the delisted building to have no special value for any other consenting process.

Officials worried this option could take years, but local bills can be very fast. If an incoming government is a bit frustrated by a council that seems able to find hundreds of millions of dollars for everything other than its water network and is not too annoyed by shenanigans around Let’s Get Wellington Moving, it could well shepherd this bill quickly through committee.

The Michael Fowler Centre and the Opera House were listed as earthquake-prone in August. The Opera House is listed on the district plan. The Fowler Centre is covered by the Civic Centre Heritage Area. Heritage New Zealand has also received a nomination for Fowler’s inclusion on the New Zealand Heritage List.

Wellington’s officials are still exploring local bill options, championed by councillor Ben McNulty and a 9-7 vote in favour, with councillors John Apanowicz, Tim Brown, Ray Chung, Sarah Free, Iona Pannett, Tamatha Paul and Nicola Young opposed.

If the council proposes this kind of local bill, a newly formed government should let Wellington get on with the job.

Or it could find time to add a government bill to the agenda. How many towns and cities face similar problems, where cost-effective approaches to mandatory strengthening are just too hard?

A National-led government might also support increased accountability the option would bring. If a council chose not to delist a building, it could not blame others for the cost.

Easy delisting doesn't solve the underlying problem. The underlying problem is a heritage preservation system that foists incredible cost onto the owners of heritage buildings, particularly if they are in need of earthquake remediation, while providing little support. A comprehensive fix would flip the system - abolishing the regulatory restrictions and instead providing annual payments for provision of the public good. 

But easier delisting would ease some of the worst pressures in the interim. 

There Is No Alternative - Wellington Council edition

It looks like Wellington Council officials are providing councilors with an offer they're not supposed to refuse.

Earlier this week, Council heard a presentation from officials on options around the Town Hall. 

As presented, there seemed no reasonable alternative to spending another $70 million to $147 million to finish strengthening works. 

Stopping works and closing the building off would only save $60 million relative to finishing. Demolishing it would cost $20m less than finishing it. And delaying would just escalate costs. 

If you look at it that way, why wouldn't you finish the thing? Sunk costs are sunk, and the choice before Council is whether to spend a small bit more to finish the project rather than aim for demolition. 

And especially when officials put a lot of time pressure on the thing, wanting a decision by next Wednesday.

But there are a few oddities in there. 

Closing up the building would have a year's worth of work finishing the basement to prevent flooding, completing critical structural works, reinstating heritage fabric and the like. Safety and other works like that are $33.42 million. 

Demolition would add $39.35m on top of close-up costs: Environment Court applications, demolition planning and works, professional fees and contingencies. 

But why would you complete critical structural works or finish the basement if you were going to bowl the thing? If they netted those costs out somewhere, it sure isn't mentioned. The only reason to finish the basement rather than fill it is if you were planning to sell the site for someone else to build on, and you'd only do that if the value added by finishing were more than the cost right?

Delisting the building from the District Plan (heritage buildings are protected because they're there listed) would open up a lot of options. 

But officials caution that if a delisting process started now, it could be in the courts until December 2027. And Council could easily lose. There is insanity in the rules around this stuff, but the rules are the rules. 

Officials noted that a Local Bill might allow faster delisting - but wind up warning against that too. 

It's pretty easy to imagine what an enabling Local Bill would look like. 

It would enable council to delist buildings by simple majority vote, without right of appeal. A delisted building would be deemed to have no special value, heritage, cultural or otherwise, when considering building or demolition consents.

With an enabling local bill in place, council could weigh up different options. 

A local bill enabling delisting could do a lot of derisking. If it turns out that preserving one bit that nobody would ever notice would add $20 million to the cost, they could just save the $20 million. They could weigh things up on a case by case basis without worrying about being sued. 

The council document notes that council carries the majority of the geotech and heritage risks. The geotech side is largely now understood, but paragraph 24 still has "heritage restoration costs and requirements" as one of the remaining risks council faces. At para 26 they note that heritage risk replaces ground risk when restoration work starts. 

But officials also suggest the local bill path is impracticable:

Pathway 3: Local Bill

95. Aside from a successful plan change, the only other path to demolition is to seek to

pass a Local Bill specifically for this purpose. This would then override the District Plan

and general RMA provisions.

96. A Council decision to demolish the building under an enabling Act could still be subject to judicial review challenging the lawfulness of demolition. Any Bill would need to be drafted in such a way as to leave no room for ambiguity in interpretation on this point.

As with the other pathways discussed, the Council would need to consider the significant precedent effects in pursuing this option, including that, in practice, a Local Bill is an option available to the Council but, unlike a resource consent, not necessarily one that could be pursued by other building owners.

97. Pursuing a Local Bill would be subject to similarly high levels of uncertainty as a resource consent and/or plan change process. The local MP would be required to manage the Bill through Parliament and Council would be required to draft the Bill and meet all associated legal costs. The Bill would need support from a majority of MPs to be passed and it may take several years from introduction of the Bill before it is passed into law. It would also be subject to public debate through that process. As an example, the Girl Guides Association (New Zealand Branch) Incorporation Bill is a private bill that was introduced in February 2021, and has still not had its second reading two-and-a-half years later.

This still feels like There Is No Alternative framing. 

Local Bills are fast. Rotorua's local bill was at Select Committee within two weeks of being introduced; it was there shot down. The Girl Guides bill is a private bill.

If an incoming government has had a gutsful of Wellington spending piles of money on things that aren't the water pipes, it may well be inclined to ensure speedy treatment of the Bill, so it gets through the Committee stages reasonably quickly. 

Worst for an incoming government would be Wellington Council being able to credibly say, 

"Look, we tried our best not to have to spend another hundred million dollars on this damned building, and likely another half billion yet to come on Opera House and Fowler Centre. And who knows what down the track. 

But we are entirely tied up by central government legislation. 

Priority buildings in Wellington have to have works or demolition completed within 7.5 years of being notified. 

Our officials tell us that if we started today to try to delist the Town Hall, we might have a decision out of Environment Court by December 2026 and up to another year for High Court appeal. That's four years of legal process. 

And the clock is already ticking on Fowler and Town Hall. If we started normal legal processes this year to delist the buildings and untie our hands, we'd have less than four years* to actually do the works on them afterwards.

We asked a red-tape-hating government to let us make the choices that were right for our community, and they forced us to waste hundreds of millions of dollars instead."

* If those are priority buildings as well; it's 15 years all-up if they are not. I have no clue which buildings get a priority label. If it's based on risk to others, Opera House seems riskier than Fowler. 

It would seem more surprising if central government knocked this back rather than supporting it, really. 

A few bottom lines then:

• Wellington Council likes to pretend that it has no choice but to spend an extra hundred million or so on this building, and who knows how much more on buildings yet to come. But there is a potential choice. Wellington Council could support a Local Bill that would enable council to delist buildings and proceed on more rational basis. 
• Regardless of whether they think an incoming government would support a local bill, Wellington Council should put one up. If central government says no, Wellington Council could more plausibly ask for help in dealing with the cost consequences of loopy central government regulations. 
• Central government is in a caretaker mode now, but when it starts up again, it should say yes to a local bill while starting to think about entirely redoing how heritage amenities are supported. The current regulatory framework is utterly unfit for purpose. It imposes massive cost on owners of buildings but little financial support. It just doesn't work. Flipping the system to ditch the regulatory restrictions while providing payments to the owners of buildings for continued provision of heritage amenities would allow greater real support for a smaller number of valuable buildings worth supporting.

Afternoon roundup

So many browser tabs before the rebooting can happen...

• In praise of the Auditor-General
• Economists flocking to Silicon Valley
• NZTA runs ads supporting local government candidates who support NZTA cycleways. It's win-win. But probably not win-win-win.
• The Character Protection Racket. See also: Mt Vic, Wellington. 
• Fuelling the Energy Transition - a report from Energy Resources Aotearoa, which includes some neat case studies on marginal abatement costs and carbon prices driving uptake of lower-carbon tech.
• Globalisation and regional energy markets
• Pattrick Smellie on the polytech reforms
• What AirNZ status do you have to hit to make sure that you don't get seated next to the violent Mongrel Mob guy with Nazi tattoos on his face who's shirtless because they asked him to take off his Mongrel Mob jacket and he wasn't wearing anything under it?

Afternoon roundup

If I'm lucky, this will close a third of the browser tabs.

• A damning indictment of the state of medical research, in the British Med J, from its former editor. "We have now reached a point where those doing systematic reviews must start by assuming that a study is fraudulent until they can have some evidence to the contrary."
• Jon Brewer is trying to make the MIQ booking system work. It is deeply broken. I hope he gets somewhere. It needs to be fixed. 
• It is difficult to take a hard line on covid testing results being a few minutes past the deadline when they aren't even bothering to check most folks' records. Chalk this one up as part of the problem in efficient punishment. Even if it weren't the case that the probability of being caught matters more than the fine if caught for otherwise expected-value-equivalent bundles, governments have a tough time imposing boiling in oil punishments in those cases. 
• I wonder whether Georgina Campbell also gets hatemail from the heritage people. Great podcast from her with RNZ on Wellington's heritage encumbrances.
• This is among the silliest arguments I've seen in the past wee while. There are serious issues with after-housing-cost incomes - agree! That can impinge on food budgets - agree! We need to solve the problem by setting a national food policy ensuring that food doesn't get exported if anyone is hungry - WTF? If you've got a housing shortage, a national food policy ain't where you should be looking for solutions. 
• We can't expand MIQ because we don't have enough nurses. But the government is refusing to process immigration applications by nurses and doctors who are already here. While the food policy proposal is silly, I doubt it's going to get anywhere. This is existing policy that is just nuts. 
• The government didn't bother ordering Pfizer vaccines until this past January. It is hard to explain how we wound up in that spot. 
• Me, at Newsroom, arguing that we should flip heritage protection from an off-budget regulatory imposition to an on-budget subsidy. Geoff Bertram disagrees with me in comments, increasing my confidence in the argument. 
• Related, on heritage, they're still fighting over the Adelaide Hotel. It's earthquake prone, too expensive to fix relative to its value, and it's all in the courts. 
• Adult entertainment establishments decrease sex crime by 13% per police precinct one week after the opening. 
• Renting sucks. That's what happens when there are too few places for rent relative to the number of people who want to rent. Building more would be nice. 
• Grimes, Reddell and McDermott on inflation targeting and house prices. 
• I loved this from Jo Moir in Newsroom's newsletter. On the vaccines mess where we can't build capacity to deliver vaccines without having vaccines but we can't actually order vaccines unless we have the capacity to deliver them: "The whole thing is a dizzying circle of very little sense and not dissimilar to the idea of waiting to build a house until the pipes are in place while the pipes won't be laid until the house is finished. Confused? Me too."

Bomb the city to save it?

The ongoing difficulties with heritage restrictions in Wellington are a bit of a problem. Can't build houses where people want to live. Can't bowl earthquake-prone defunct old buildings. And can't even get decent ticketing systems at the rail station because somehow the turnstiles would impede the heritage stuff. 

When you get this level of institutional ossification, well, the bombers may be the only solution.

This week's third column in the Initiative's newsletter. The third column is meant to be satire. Or despair. 

Japan’s post Second World War economic growth was astonishing. Despite widespread devastation, Japan produced an economic miracle.

Economist Mancur Olson provides the most compelling explanation.

I wonder whether his lessons might apply to continued difficulties in Wellington.

Olson argued that political institutions become ossified over time. Entrenched interests block improvements. Wiping out existing political hierarchies and veto players enabled sustained growth.

Ideally, that kind of change is possible without the bombers. But one does wonder.

Wellington’s draft spatial plan debates a month ago were bad enough.

Some councillors did their best to prevent owners of old wooden tents in Mount Victoria from redeveloping their properties into modern townhouses and apartments.

While Council reduced the extent of heritage protection, substantial bans still prevent building new housing in places where people want to live – despite a massive housing shortage.

But it gets worse.

Wellington enjoys a heritage rail ticketing system, complete with paper tickets to be punched by conductors. While the bus system has electronic payment, getting that system onto the trains has been slow.

This week, Kāpiti Coast District Councillor Gwynn Compton found one reason why. Gwynn requested correspondence between Heritage New Zealand, Greater Wellington Regional Council, and KiwiRail regarding the rollout of any integrated ticketing system.

The response ran to three volumes and 128 pages. Heritage Impact Assessments needed to be prepared for necessary infrastructure. Comment on the Heritage Impact Assessments needed to be assessed. The size, colour, and location of six temporary posts checking electronic fare cards needed to be considered. Bold colours that might let commuters tell where to find things were considered too intrusive.

If you think that the Wellington rail station is a museum piece, fair enough. But it does also try to be a working commuter rail station. Britomart in Auckland somehow managed to integrate electronic ticketing into its heritage facilities.

But everything heritage in Wellington is simply too hard.

And that brings us back to my bomber-based solution. Every two years, Wairarapa has an airshow. When we are lucky, an American B-52 flyover delights the crowds.

It flies over Wellington on the way, on a well-advertised flight path providing plenty of notice.

Next time it could have payload.

Clearing Mount Victoria, the Gordon Wilson Flats, the unfixable-at-any-reasonable-cost library, and a few other spots could kickstart an economic and housing miracle for the Capital.

I wish there were an easier way.

Bootleggers and baptists - art restoration edition

Suppose that after some home mechanic botched a restoration of a classic one-of-a-kind Ferrari, an association of panelbeaters demanded regulation making sure that only Registered and Authorised Panelbeaters were allowed to do any bodywork on classic cars.

It'd be pretty obvious rent-seeking, right?

What if it were a different kind of artwork?

Conservation experts in Spain have called for a tightening of the laws covering restoration work after a copy of a famous painting by the baroque artist Bartolomé Esteban Murillo became the latest in a long line of artworks to suffer a damaging and disfiguring repair.

A private art collector in Valencia was reportedly charged €1,200 by a furniture restorer to have the picture of the Immaculate Conception cleaned. However, the job did not go as planned and the face of the Virgin Mary was left unrecognisable despite two attempts to restore it to its original state.

The case has inevitably resulted in comparisons with the infamous “Monkey Christ” incident eight years ago, when a devout parishioner’s attempt to restore a painting of the scourged Christ on the wall of a church on the outskirts of the north-eastern Spanish town of Borja made headlines around the world.

An art prof who once headed the relevant professional guild provided the baptist case:

Carrera, a former president of Spain’s Professional Association of Restorers and Conservators (Acre), said the law currently allowed people to engage in restoration projects even if they lacked the necessary skills. “Can you imagine just anyone being allowed to operate on other people? Or someone being allowed to sell medicine without a pharmacist’s licence? Or someone who’s not an architect being allowed to put up a building?”

Would you allow just anyone to tinker with a classic car in the garage?

I see no more public interest in protecting individual works in private hands than there is in protecting classic cars, or older houses. If there is some compelling public interest, the government can buy the things and make them museum pieces, or pay the owners for an easement that comes with conditions around public display and care. Otherwise, it's nobody else's business. And the art-restorers are here acting as rent-seekers. 

HT: A friend who comments "I personally have benefited more from the Monkey Christ restoration than every other work of religious art in Spain."

I think that friend may be right in total too. The modal piece of religious art in Spain of similar vintage is practically unviewed, relative to Monkey Christ. Pop quiz: can you even now, without looking back up, even remember the name of the artist in this case, or of the artist who painted what became Monkey Christ? The Guardian piece linked suggests that more people now go to see Monkey Christ than did before too. Be honest. You wouldn't be able to pick the original version of Monkey Christ out of a lineup of a dozen similar pieces. Sure, a few art experts might, but neither you nor I would. But it would be hard not to know this one, and its backstory. 

Does a housing crisis have heritage value?

Ryman Healthcare wants to put up a retirement village in Karori, along with a pile of related services. They've bought the old Karori teachers' college.

It's a great site - easy land to build on, right on bus routes, an easy walk to Karori village and right next door to the Karori Swimming Pool.

But there's a problem. The old Karori teacher's college is apparently a great example of 1970 brutalist architecture, and New Zealand has a rather low threshold for applying heritage designations to buildings. Heritage New Zealand wants to impose a Category 1 listing on it.

Meanwhile, in Auckland, View West wants to tear down an old unreinforced soft concrete church in Epsom that is at risk of falling down onto passers-by and replace it with terraced housing - the kind of dense inner-suburb housing that Auckland is missing. Heritage New Zealand opposes that, noting "unacceptable adverse historic heritage effects."

I have a small proposal. Until the housing crisis ends, no new heritage designations. If a building or site is of sufficient value, Heritage New Zealand should solicit donations so that it might purchase the site. The good people at Architecture Centre might chip in to buy the Karori teacher's college as they seem rather fond of it. As owner of the building, Heritage New Zealand would then be able develop the site as it deems best.

For buildings with existing heritage designations, a Council refusal to grant consent to develop for housing should be treated as a Council offer to purchase the site at its rateable value. Submissions opposing the development should be treated as offers to contribute towards Council's purchase of the building. Submissions opposing development that do not include a pledged amount to contribute towards the site's purchase should have no standing. Council then can decide whether the weight of opposition, along with its own willingness to contribute towards buying the site, is sufficient to warrant purchase of the site.

Farewell Molly Malone

Courtney Place pub Molly Malone's was damaged in last year's earthquake. The building is old, but not heritage-listed. So it fortunately can be demolished, as the owners wish.

That doesn't mean the heritage people didn't try to block it anyway though. 

"In this case, the building has been identified by the council as earthquake prone … [and] the applicant contends that the building 'is a clear and present danger to the public'."

In addition, the owners planned to fill the space in the interim, and eventually rebuild, meaning any effects on the streetscape would be temporary, Hayes said.

However, the council's senior heritage advisor Vanessa Tanner opposed the demolition.

She said that while the build was not heritage listed, it had significance in terms of the build and social context.

Heritage New Zealand also weighed in, saying the loss of the Molly Malones building was regrettable due to both the heritage qualities of the building and its place in more recent social history.

[Council Senior consents planner Lisa] Hayes said there were no rules preventing its demolition as it was not a heritage building.

"While I acknowledged the advice of Ms Tanner that there will be an adverse heritage effect associated with this loss, this will be a public effect and needs to be balanced with the risk to public safety if the unsafe building is to be retained," Hayes said.

Heritage Costs: Who wants an old church?

Heritage fans have a chance to put their money where their mouths are. A beautiful old rimu church is going for $1 reserve auction.

But it does have a few encumbrances.

If you buy it and keep it on-site, you couldn't use it without strengthening it to meet earthquake code - it's currently at 8% of code. And it's a Category 2 Heritage-listed building, so strengthening will not be cheap as you'd have to find a strengthening solution that makes the Historic Places Trust happy. If you keep it on-site, your final use, at seller's insistence, has to be not incompatible with Christian faith, so I suppose a brothel is out.

If you buy it and want to move it, you'd need to get a resource consent for moving it, and nobody knows how hard that would be given the heritage listing.

TradeMe says it's now sold for $11,100. I wonder if the buyer knows what's coming.

The Q&A on the listing is instructive. Some snippets below. Heritage New Zealand listings really should come with a standing option for the owner to sell the building, and all of its encumbrances, back to Heritage New Zealand, at a pre-set price.

This is a pretty sad case. But if an earthquake hit, it's unlikely that an empty church in a small town would kill people.

There are dozens of buildings in Wellington for which this is not true. The masonry facades will fall off the buildings, onto the street and sidewalk, and kill people. And nobody who made those buildings too hard to fix will face any liability whatsoever for the deaths they will have helped to cause.

HI COULD IT BE SAVED AS A CHURCH i GUESS IT NEED NEW PILES AND BEING A TIMBER BUILDING SHOUDNT BE TO HARD TO DO WITH THE HELP OF CHURCH MEMBERS i COULD OFFER HELP

sandra18 (1071 ) 7:41 pm, Sun 20 Nov

A. Thanks for the offer. Does need new piles and maintenance. Congregation mostly old and unable to do the work. Not interested in spending money of a building no longer suitable for current worship 6:43 am, Tue 22 Nov

can we demolish

rottnott1 (197 ) 7:37 pm, Tue 22 Nov

A. The Church building is listed with Heritage NZ and WBOP as category 2. We are attempting to have it de-listed to enable demolition, but Heritage NZ insist on every effort being made to find someone to relocate and restore it. If this is not possible we would be happy to have it demolished. 6:14 am, Wed 23 Nov

what a shame .

thisles5 (3083 ) 8:31 pm, Tue 22 Nov

A. The shame is that when a building is no longer suitable, and requires more in maintenance than can be afforded by its owners, it can't be got rid of for no other reason than it is old. 6:18 am, Wed 23 Nov

I have just come across this listing. I see there are a few current bidders but no info on who is bidding. I really would like to see this building relocated, restored and put to a worthwhile purpose compatible with its history and Christian faith. Please can this auction auto extend to give time to investigate some possibilities. Bless you.

yas6 (493 ) 10:48 am, Wed 23 Nov

A. We are happy to give as much time as needed for serious developers / restorers. The process of getting resource consents will not be short. 8:25 pm, Wed 23 Nov

Given the removal isn't a fait accompli (you haven't received permission to do this) don't you think you're leading people up the up the garden path with this auction?

nyron (21 ) 9:02 pm, Wed 23 Nov

A. You are right. Removal is not a fait accompli. We are trying to find someone who loves old buildings enough to go through the long process of resource and other consents to achieve relocation. If we can't the old church will continue to deteriorate until it begins to fall down. 8:06 am, Thu 24 Nov

Hello there, can you tell me why rhe church has been unused for so long? Is it unsafe? Thankyou

mopar.man (1038 ) 10:39 pm, Wed 23 Nov

A. The Church is only 8% of current earthquake standards, requiring re-piling and strengthening before it can be used by the public 8:08 am, Thu 24 Nov

I live in Waihi and am currently bidding. If a listed building, is there a possible grant towards restoration/conversion. If there is any correspondence with regards would this be available to purchaser.

kotkinsmith (2 ) 2:37 am, Thu 24 Nov

A. Heritage NZ and others talk about grants but nothing has materialised 8:10 am, Thu 24 Nov

This trade me listing is very misleading. Firstly it says it is listed with the WBOP District whereas actually it is the HDC and the listing means that it cannot be either demolished or removed without a resource consent. From memory that is a non complying activity in the HDC District Plan, which would not be easy to get.

ugmine (173 ) 6:52 am, Thu 24 Nov

A. You are right on two counts. My mistake. I wrote WBOP instead of HDC. Removal or demolition is non complying. As it stands the church can't be used, demolished or removed. A case can be made for preserving it by relocation, but it will take time and effort. 8:15 am, Thu 24 Nov

Do you have any idea how much the resource consent would cost for removal?

sjr24 (66 ) 8:36 am, Thu 24 Nov

A. No Idea. It depends very much on how long it takes to convince HDC relocation and restoration is the best option 8:45 am, Thu 24 Nov

What would happen if after months/years petitioning to relocate the council / heritage NZ still do not approve it - what then would be the responsibilities of the new owner?

justinsa6 (41 ) 8:47 am, Thu 24 Nov

A. Had not thought that one through. It seems logical to me that if it HDC and Heritage are adamant that it can't be moved it would fall back on us .. and we would leave it to fall to bits 8:50 am, Thu 24 Nov