What's wrong with our waterfront?

BY KERRY WILLIAMSON

A wet and windy week day and the waterfront is almost deserted, other than a couple of very keen runners and a lone businessman with his head down.

Queens Wharf Square, once considered a waterfront hotspot, is devoid of life. Further south, the playground at Frank Kitts Park is empty save for a pair of scavenging seagulls.

The water is grey and uninviting, and the clouds hang low, blanketing the hills. It's as though the city has turned its back - for today - on the harbour.

To some, a day like today highlights all that is wrong with the waterfront: lifeless, dull, a wasted opportunity.

But to others, all is as it should be. The area is full of open spaces for the public to enjoy as they wish. After all, it is a waterfront, not an amusement park.

These sentiments have long been at the heart of one of the city's great debates - what should we do with our waterfront? Should it be left as a public space, or be transformed into a bustling hub of apartments, offices and activities?

That debate is about to be brought to a head. Again. The waterfront's future is at a crossroads, with developers waiting to pounce, and concerned citizens prepared to fight them at every turn.

Some say it is already too late, that the keys to the city's crown jewels have already been handed over. They point to a recent decision allowing a private developer to take over the old Overseas Passenger Terminal site.

The Environment Court has approved a plan that allows developer Willis Bond to take charge of the Wellington City Council-owned site. The $100 million redevelopment will include up to 90 apartments, ground-floor shops, car parks and a viewing platform.

A delighted Wellington Mayor Kerry Prendergast says the work ends the site's 40 years "in limbo". But the deal also allows the council - and ratepayers - to duck a $20m bill to fix the rotten piles beneath the terminal. That work is included in a $32m deal with the developers, in exchange for a 125-year lease.

Meanwhile, the bills to fix other parts of the waterfront are piling up. Safety concerns have already forced the closure of Waterloo Wharf, with the maritime police and dive squad having to move. Rotting piles under the nearby outer-T at Queens Wharf, propped up by timber piles dating from 1865, mean it could also be closed within 18 months.

Ms Prendergast says the rot has set in so badly in places that you could punch holes in the crumbling wharves - and in the council's budget. The total repair bill could spiral past $40m.

'PRIVATISING PUBLIC LAND'

Other waterfront developments are set to begin in the next year that will unequivocally change the waterfront for ever. "They are privatising public land," says Pauline Swann, the long-standing voice of lobby group Waterfront Watch. "And we can't see the point of treating the waterfront as private development space."

The council says its opponents are wrong, and are purposely taking advantage of a regulatory system weighted in their favour. Public spaces will be protected and improved, the council insists - and the waterfront will always remain a public amenity. However, some development is needed to make the waterfront vibrant and viable.

What is not in doubt is that the face of the waterfront could change significantly in the next three years.

Several new buildings are planned, including an award- winning design for what is now a car park just south of the Meridian building. A two-storey wharewaka, or boathouse, will be built near the lagoon and Frank Kitts Park is in line for a makeover.

Hilton Hotels is still sniffing around for a waterfront site, despite being turned down by the Environment Court. And an "ideas competition" will be held for the problematic Queens Wharf Outer T, with something to happen on that site in the next decade.

Ms Prendergast says the developments need to proceed or the waterfront will stagnate. The public, she says, wants the council to move and she is frustrated it can't happen more quickly. "We got a really clear message that it needs to be a place for all people, 24 hours a day, where you can recreate,  where you can work, where you  can live and where you can play.

"And a waterfront that is just a waterfront doesn't do that. You can't have a waterfront that's vibrant if you don't do anything to it, if it's a windswept, miserable place."

But opponents say the council is giving away too much control to developers, who are prepared to spend private money on developing public land. "We're not against development. But the waterfront should be in contrast to the cbd, not an extension of it," Ms Swann says.

"People don't go to the waterfront to buy underpants or get a haircut. Recreating Lambton Quay or Featherston St on the waterfront is crazy.

"Suddenly those buildings will be there and people will be asking, 'How did they get there?' - and it will be too late."

BACK TO THE FUTURE

If the debate feels like deja vu, that's because it is. At the centre of the argument is Variation 11, a proposed change to the District Plan that would give the council the ability to approve development on the waterfront without seeking public consultation.

It comes just eight years after the death of the despised Variation 17, a council plan that would have transformed the waterfront. A public uproar forced an embarrassing about-turn by the city council in 2001. Not long after, a new plan change was passed, providing more green space and protecting heritage buildings.

To many, Variation 11 is Variation 17 in drag, with similar ramifications for the waterfront. It's just not as well known - yet.

Among other things, the plan change would remove the zero height limit, in turn removing the need for resource consent applications to be publicly notified. Instead, buildings would be non- notified discretionary activities - meaning the council could simply give a new building the green light.

Critics say that would be the beginning of the end for a public waterfront; proponents say it would do away with unnecessary red tape and delay.

Wellington Waterfront is the agency that manages the waterfront's day-to-day activities and runs public events on behalf of the city council.

Chief executive Ian Pike says regulatory barriers are the No 1 reason why the waterfront hasn't fulfilled its potential. He describes the current process as untenable.

"Everything we do, almost bar none, has to have a notified resource consent. That's an extremely expensive and time- consuming process. I've never faced so many blockages in terms of a strategic direction of where we want to go.

"I don't like it, but I accept we have to do that. I'm not a private developer."

Ms Prendergast agrees. The council, and developers, are continually hamstrung by a process that is weighted too heavily in favour of opponents, she says.

"Currently, every single one gets appealed to the Environment Court. Is it fair that one, two or three dissatisfied people - who could be well-meaning through to mischievous - can hold up a development for two, three or four years?

"At the moment, the level playing field is you can't build anything without a consent and a small group of people is going to take it to the Environment Court. So why would you even bother?"

Opponents say public input is crucial, and that any delays caused by it are part and parcel of the regulatory process.

Variation 11 drew 49 submissions, of which 48 were opposed to it. The only one in support was written by the council's own Wellington Waterfront. "We're not the only nimby on the block," says Ms Swann.

Seddon Bennington, chief executive of Te Papa - the waterfront's centrepiece - also fears Variation 11 would cut the public out of consultation. As head of the Wellington Civic Trust, which has previously supported appropriate development, he says the plan change should be shot down.

"Such a non-transparent process runs the risk of jeopardising public confidence in the waterfront development," he wrote in the trust's submission to council.

Several architects also oppose Variation 11. Christine McCarthy, past president of the Architectural Centre, is highly critical of the council's plans to diminish public consultation.

Her group, which includes architects who have worked on waterfront projects, says the plan is a "crude knee-jerk" reaction to the Hilton Hotel decision "aimed at rushing projects through".

"We cannot understand the council's agenda for wanting to disarm the public voice," she says. "We consider it to be a misplaced over-reaction. We expect more professionalism from our council."

HILTON LEGACY

Opponents of Variation 11 say the plan is a direct response to the failure of the Hilton project. The chain wanted to build a $45m, 142-room hotel on the Queens Wharf Outer-T, a project backed by Greater Wellington regional council, Ms Prendergast and film director Peter Jackson.

It would have seen the crumbling wharf repaired using private cash. But a group including Waterfront Watch and the Wellington Civic Trust took their fight to the Environment Court, where Judge Brian Dwyer ruled a five-star hotel on the Outer T was inconsistent with the sustainable use of natural and physical resources.

That would probably not have happened under Variation 11.

The first test for the new rules, if approved, would be two new buildings on land in the Kumutoto Precinct, south of the Meridian building. The land is currently a car park, but developers plan two Ian Athfield-designed buildings that would go much higher than the zero height limit now in place.

The sloping glass-fronted buildings - six floors and five floors respectively - would house offices, possibly restaurants and bars, and maybe shops. And, together, they would be significantly larger than the Meridian building.

They would also block views of two historic sheds, heritage buildings that have some protection and were the blueprint for what should be built on the waterfront.

Some would like to have seen that land turned into a plaza, but Mr Pike says buildings are part of the waterfront's future.

Those who believe the waterfront should be an urban park are deluded, he says. He points to the Napier waterfront, which is dominated by green space, as what Wellington's waterfront should avoid.

"This is the capital city of New Zealand, an urban environment. Wellington is full of parks. We've got an urban environment and it needs to showcase what Wellington is," he says. "Buildings provide many things. Shelter from the storm, a reason to go somewhere, economic viability. If it was all just open, people wouldn't go there.

"It's all about balance. If we were doing that at every turn, we'd be wrong."

He argues that hearings over Variation 11 provide the public with a chance for consultation. Hearings begin in August, and submitters will have their say.

"What they are saying is, 'you are removing our right to have a say'. We're not removing that right at all. We're actually bringing it forward.

"The process to date, which requires resource consent applications to be made on a publicly notified basis, it's a very demanding process and you can have delays of up to two years.

"It's an untenable situation. Delays can be fatal."

But others say delays are beneficial, meaning informed decisions can be made once everyone has had their say. "The waterfront is . . . managed by public finance. It quite literally belongs to us," says Ms McCarthy.

JEWEL IN THE CROWN

On a good day, the waterfront is the place to be. In the middle of summer, when the sun is high and the water ripples with silver, it can seem as though half of Wellington is down on the harbour's shores.

There will be kayakers drifting among cruise liners, sun worshippers lying near the old piers, coffee addicts filling the cafes and couples pushing prams along the promenade. On a good day, it's the best place in the world.

The key, clearly, is finding a balance between the past, the present and the future, between open public spaces and private, money- making buildings.

It is here you will find that all sides in this often-heated argument agree - the waterfront is the jewel in Wellington's crown, and as such it needs to be treated carefully.

"This is Wellington's front lawn. It's got to be sensitively looked at," Mr Pike says. "The waterfront will never be finished and should never be finished. It needs to be ever- evolving."

David Lee, of Waterfront Watch, agrees. The oft-criticised group knows the waterfront can't remain as it is. But it wants to be able to have its say, and it wants the public to have a voice as well.

"If they are going to go ahead and develop, let's remember that it's public land. Let the public have a say about it.

"That's democracy, surely?"

RETAIL CENTRE - THEY BUILT IT BUT PEOPLE DIDN'T COME

The white elephant in the room  during any discussion on Wellington's waterfront is the failed $40  million Queens Wharf retail centre - which is still costing ratepayers.

When the wharf was redeveloped in 1995, it was pitched as the city's new retail and entertainment centre.

The retail centre attracted glitzy shops, including a split-level Donna Karan fashion store, and was supposed to lure people to the waterfront like never before.

The concept was simple: Build it and the well-heeled Lambton Quay suits would come and splurge during lunchtime. They did not.

Now, nearly 15 years later, the venue is lifeless. The retail centre is now offices, all the shops have gone and the square is often deserted, save for crowds visiting the TSB Arena opposite.

The events centre has been somewhat of a success, but is often described as an inward-looking building - in the wrong place.

"When people talk about the waterfront and the mistakes that were made, they always refer to the retail and events centre. There's no flop about it - it was a disaster," said Ian Pike, chief executive of Wellington Waterfront.

"Those buildings are inappropriate for the waterfront. A retail centre on the waterfront in this city doesn't work."

Mayor Kerry Prendergast stopped short of calling it a disaster, but admitted the initiative had not worked. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. "It went through a rigorous process and the community seemed at that stage to accept it," she said.

"Most of us can't visualise something till it's built. We've learned since then. We've learnt the lesson from that."

The centre cost about $40 million to build, but four years after it opened many of its tenants had bailed out – some threatening legal action.

At one stage, the site was going to be transformed into a skating rink. It now houses, among other things, offices for Shell.

The centre still receives council subsidies.

Mr Pike said Queens Wharf no longer represented the vision for the waterfront: "Nothing we've done since is any way like those buildings."

- © Fairfax NZ News