Pecha kucha, Kirikiriroa Hamilton, September 2019
Liveability and character go together like fish and chips. Or perhaps peas and carrots, given their recognised health benefits. We love our cities to be full of wonderful “old stuff,” historic centres, period homes, leafy green, quirky lanes with edgy but artistic street art.
Look at this graphic of the “universal” indicators of a healthy street! All good stuff – and it’s no coincidence that it all sits against a backdrop of period buildings. Historic character is what gives “city liveability” its special place-specific charm. And that’s all super great, especially if you’re a make some kind of an income from conserving old buildings. But I’m going to suggest here that sometimes striving to preserve character can actually kill it, that liveability gains for some can be at the expense of others. That sometimes we’re pedalling liveability to a dead end.
So what issues can there possibly be with maintaining and enhancing special character as part of liveability improvements? Well, first, ring-fencing special character can quickly amplify divisions between the Haves and the Have Nots. It’s funny that every time an area is proposed as a special character area, all the residents scream blue murder that their property prices will plummet, that they won’t be allowed to do anything and that the world will end. And yet it’s proven time and again that character areas actively add to property values.
This is not only due to the amenities that already exist. but those that quickly become added as wealth attracts wealth, entitlement grows on entitlement, and councils pander to demands for liveability enhancements – more trees, better playgrounds, protect my heritage.
Here’s what downtown Auckland used to look like, and what it looks like now. Pretty big liveability improvement! But who’s fallen out of the picture, who now has to hide in the cracks? We like to think that liveability gains are always a win-win for all a city’s citizens. Is this really so?
Ponsonby Road used to look like this. And no doubt these mums wouldn’t have minded a café on the corner and a playground with spinning net swings. And presumably the painter could’ve done with a Holden Colorado. But actually, they’d probably be happier just getting to stay there. Ponsonby is less than 2 k from the CBD and it used to have lots of brown people. It was a working-class suburb, lots of cultures, the birthplace of Kiwi reggae music, Rastafarianism and numerous rights groups.
But its “special character was recognised and protected,” and now the average house sells for over $2M and the suburb is 90% Pakeha. It’s pretty sobering to hear from Reverend Strickson-Pua, who grew up there in the 70s –
I take my brown students here and I've got to tell you, my brown students, they feel really uncomfortable to walk through Ponsonby. My brown students feel threatened. My students tell me straight, they go, “Sir, this is Whitesville!”
… Lets not kid ourselves that liveability for me is liveability for all.
This is not just about gentrification. It’s about who gets to decide what heritage is and how it gets kept. One story from my own professional past gets to me here. As a young heritage specialist at Auckland City Council we threw the book at the Bhana Brothers, owners of a fruit and vege shop on Ponsonby Road, for unilaterally removing a 19th century shopfront and installing new auto doors – ruining the streetscape’s authentic Edwardian fabric. The Bhanas have been providing veges here since the 1930s. I look back on that controversy now and think, whose heritage were we privileging, and at whose expense?
In my view, the answer to this question is shown most powerfully and painfully in this recent Auckland sculpture in Potter’s Park, Balmoral. … I show you this picture because it still makes me mad. I recommend Janet McAllister’s Herald piece on this.
This leads to a second point about liveability and special character. Take Mount Victoria in Devonport – a community pretty damn passionate about its special character. And yet, when kids illegally carved mountain bike tracks into the maunga, the dominant response was, “it’s just scrappy old pasture” “Its. A. Hill.” “Good on them.” Takarunga is a taonga. The “hill” is an ancient pa site, with hangi pits so old they have moa bones in them. And yet people can ignore this amazing story while lamenting some villa alteration as heritage at risk.
What about our own city, Kirikiriroa, Hamilton? Can we learn to draw on multiple threads of our rich history to define our selves and enhance liveability for all our communities? People’s sense of responsibility for special character aligns with the Maori value of kaitiakitanga – to nurture, watch over. Let’s be honest about how special character can be used as a tool for nimbyism. Let’s get real about how enhancing liveability for some does not necessarily mean its enhanced for all. Let’s really care about our heritage – the buildings, yes, but communities, stories, our deeper place in Maoritanga – and start to build liveability from a truly rich centre of special character.
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