Dr Hazelton yesterday gave a talk about ''Collaborating on a regeneration cookbook'', on the second day of Heritage Impact150, a national symposium. And he discussed ''ingredients and skills for heritage-led regeneration'' in Dunedin.
The symposium was held mainly at the Dunedin Gasworks Museum Fitting Shop.
This historic brick building was reopened in 2011 after a $900,000 restoration project - strongly backed by the city council - saved it after an engineering report warned of imminent collapse.
Close collaboration with heritage building owners and other stakeholders was playing a key role in heritage-led regeneration in Dunedin, Dr Hazelton said.
Some critics had charged that the success of restoration and redevelopment efforts in the Warehouse Precinct, near the Exchange, had resulted from the city council ''throwing money'' at the area.
In fact, the council had limited funds, and only relatively modest sums, amounting to about $270,000, had recently been provided to encourage owners to pursue restoration work there, including through a grants scheme for reuse of heritage buildings. And over the past couple of years, building owners had invested more than $5 million in restoration and upgrading work there.
''If we can achieve what we have at a time when the economy is flat, imagine what we could do when the economy grows,'' he added in an interview.
He is project managing the DCC's Warehouse Precinct Revitalisation Project and had been working with building owners to find innovative ways to reuse Dunedin's many under-utilised heritage buildings.
Mr Hazelton said momentum was growing and heritage building owners were already encouraging others to do more to restore their own buildings.
English-based Gasworks Museum patron Sir Neil Cossons said he had been ''astonished'' at the heritage regeneration progress that had been achieved in Dunedin in the five years since his last visit.
The national symposium had highlighted some of the ''terrific'' developments and marked ''an important step forward'' for the museum and Dunedin's industrial heritage, he said.
