The decision to keep 10 Wellington landmarks on the heritage list was Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop’s only major departure from the city council’s recommendations, despite both parties wanting them gone.

The Wellington District Plan was finalised by Bishop on May 8. For each of the 20 matters arising on the plan, Bishop could choose to side with the recommendations of the Wellington City Council (generally pro-development) or the Independent Hearing Panel (generally restrictive).?

Bishop sided with the council on every subject but two, including the decision to maintain 10 local heritage sites. The other matter concerned zoning Kilbirnie, in which he took the panel’s unusually progressive recommendation. The message was clear: Bishop was overwhelmingly pro-development, agreeing to upzone wide swathes of the city and shrink character precincts.?

The mission of Pouhere Taonga Heritage NZ is to ※ensure that our bicultural history is understood by New Zealanders and all peoples§. Sites can be heritage listed by their local council on the District Plan under the RMA. In theory, heritage status ought to protect a valuable site from ill-meaning developers and ensure that any maintenance work retains the original, historical character of the site.?

In practice, the sites included on this list can be contentious, such as the Gordon Wilson Flats and the Miramar Gas Tank. The former has sat empty for a decade, and nobody even seemed to know about the latter before a debate about its listing made headlines ahead of Bishop’s decision. Despite calls for both to be demolished to make room for new development, neither has been touched.

Anything with heritage status can modified or removed, either through changing its status in the local District Plan or by applying for a resource consent under the RMA. Victoria University, the owner of the Gordon Wilson Flats, applied to de-list their site via the District Plan, and although their motion was accepted by the Council, it was later appealed. The resulting Environmental Court decision overturned the de-listing.

In the case of the gas tank, which has only recently been listed, the owners sent in a submission against the proposal to list the site but didn’t specifically supply evidence in their favour. Any owner of a heritage site, including these two, could theoretically apply for a resource consent for demolition. In Wellington, that would be considered a discretionary activity. So while de-listing isn’t the only way for an owner to alter their heritage building, for the ten owners concerned with the Wellington District Plan, it provides the clearest path forward.

As news broke about Bishop’s near-unanimous siding with the pro-development council, the retention of heritage sites came as a bit of a shock to those following the debate.

Ben McNulty, Wellington City Councillor for the Takap迂/Northern Ward, had been vocal about his desire to get all 10 of the listed sites de-listed. He told Newsroom on May 14 that he was frustrated that the decision didn’t go ahead, but that he understood why it didn’t happen.

In order to make a decision on any of the 20 matters, Bishop had to cite evidence presented by both sides of the debate: the Independent Hearing Panel and the Wellington City Council. In the case of the heritage listings, McNulty explained that the council had not brought in their own evidence to argue for the removal of the cites, and instead used pieces of the evidence submitted in favour of the sites against them, pulling what he called an ※Uno reverse card§.?

※We did something untested,§ he said, and it wasn’t enough for Bishop’s requirements. In a statement to Newsroom, Bishop said: ※I was required to carefully follow a legal test when making the decision - and the test is not whether the buildings are eyesores, or whether that land could be better used if those buildings were knocked down and redeveloped.§ He explained that he could only consider the presented evidence - he could not seek out new evidence - and ※there was a lack of evidence before me that these buildings should be removed or not listed§.

Because this subject had garnered so much public attention, Bishop said his officials were working to proactively release the evidence he was allowed to see while making his decisions.

But the buck does not stop here. Bishop made these decisions in his role as the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, and indicated that upcoming Resource Management Act amendments could address this ※vexed issue§ by including a pathway to de-list heritage sites.

※We’re about to introduce our first Resource Management Act Amendment Bill to Parliament, and we’re planning a second RMA Amendment Bill later this year,§ said Bishop. He pointed to this second Amendment Bill as a potential opportunity for heritage changes. Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has also supported the de-listing initiative, writing to Bishop before his decision. Bishop said that he would work with her to develop policy about this matter.

In the meantime, said McNulty, ※what this saga has pointed to is that it’s impossible to de-list [a site] unless it burns down§. His goal is to get all 10 sites pulled from the list, and any other sites where the owners of the property do not want to abide by heritage requirements. In many cases, this includes individual families with listed homes, who face steep maintenance costs and restrictive renovation policies.?

McNulty did not believe that facilitating de-listing would open the door to greedy property developers, who may seek to tear down a site with more historical value than, say, the rusting and derelict Miramar Gas Tank.

The tank (technically the ＆Miramar Installation Bulk Storage Tank’), is a unique relic of the transformative influence of the British Imperial Oil Company. In the 1920s, the company repurposed the Park Road site from an amusement park to an oil storage depot, a project that the Otago Witness described at the time as turning a ※wonderland recreation of old§ to a ※wonderland of industry§.

Today, the site at 139 Park Road is home to yet another iteration of Miramar’s wonderland. The sprawling campus surrounding the tank is home to W言ta Workshop and W言ta Digital, an industry described by the tank’s heritage evaluation document as ※Wellington’s Hollywood§.

McNulty did not seem to agree with the status of this site or others as particularly significant. He told Newsroom that, in the case of the gas tank, he did not imagine the original builders would have considered their project to be a significant piece of New Zealand history: ※Absolutely not. Not one iota.§

Neither McNulty nor Bishop had actually visited the gas tank, though McNulty said he had ※driven by§. In the meantime, said Bishop, with regards to alternative pathways for de-listing heritage sites, ※there’s a fair bit of water to go under the bridge before I can confirm anything§.