Battle lines appear drawn over the redevelopment of the Dunedin harbourside, after the Historic Places Trust registered the area as historic on Friday.
The New Zealand Historic Places Trust board approved the registration of the harbourside as an historic area, saying it had significant heritage and cultural values.
The Dunedin City Council has major plans for the area, including commercial and residential development, apartments, bars, public walkways and tree-lined boulevards.
Council planning and environment policy committee chairman Cr Michael Guest had reservations over a blanket registration of the area, which would create real problems for a ‘‘wonderful development'' for Dunedin.
‘‘We must not have our eyes totally in the 19th century,'' he said.
Trust Otago-Southland area manager Owen Graham said the registration should not stymie the council's plans and was not an attempt to stop development.
Registration did not totally protect the buildings. If a building was to be changed, the trust would have to be consulted.
He said the trust had been working on registration for six years, well before any council plans had emerged. The council could have done better in protecting the historic significance of the area in its plan change.
‘‘In other parts of the country, harbour heritage areas have been kept and integrated. This city's approach with the plan change has taken the most minimal approach of heritage management they could have . . .
‘‘The council does not have a good understanding of what a registration is.''
It was not just about buildings but about the whole area, as it was ‘‘the front door to the world for Dunedin in the 1860s after the discovery of gold in Central Otago''.
Mr Graham said the trust noted the council's plans centred on the removal of or the significant alteration of many of the older buildings in the area.
‘‘There is a need to change that attitude so development proposals always look at how the heritage infrastructure may be retained and utilised first of all to see how new ways can be found of keeping old buildings alive.''
He considered the mix of building styles, general consistency of scale and alignment of buildings in their wide streets was a ‘‘key ingredient''.
The council and other groups strongly objected to trust registration when the idea was suggested last November.
Cr Guest said he hoped the registration would not result in having to keep poorly designed aspects at all costs. A lot of modern evelopment was wonderful, he said.
‘‘There is a romantic idea that the goods sheds . . . must be kept at all costs, and development take place within them. Well, that simply won't work.''
He criticised the trust for not putting in a submission on the council's plan change for harbourside.
‘‘We put the plan change out for public consultation and lo and behold at the same time, rather than make a submission, they get in and make a heritage change. They do it now, rather than 20 years ago.
‘‘They are not the ones putting up the money to take Dunedin into the 22nd century.''
Council chief executive Jim Harland said he was disappointed with the trust's decision, but it would not change the council process.
His main concern was the way the trust said the social history of the harbourside area was an important part of the fabric, but if you used that logic ‘‘the whole city should be locked up''.
Submissions close on the council's harbourside plan change on April 30. - Staff Reporters
