Historian finds Timaru council’s decision ‘utterly bewildering’

Saturday, 20 July 2024

Dr Andrew Paul Wood is a local art and design historian, a consultant on public art projects, has written about architecture for Defign, Architecture NZ, Urbis, Heritage NZ and elsewhere, and is working on a book on New Zealand architect F W Petre who designed Timaru’s Sacred Heart Basilica and many other churches and buildings around the country.

OPINION: I love Timaru. I am proud to call myself a Timaruvian.

Like many people I was flabbergasted by the cost blowouts and concerned about rate rises, but I find the council’s decision to scrap the Theatre Royal and Heritage Hub development utterly bewildering.

I’m particularly appalled at the undemocratic secrecy around it.

With the ballooning costs, I cannot fathom why the council simply didn’t wind the project back to just focus on redeveloping the Theatre Royal again, within the existing budget. Other developments could have been put off until a better time.

Was selling the naming rights or seeking corporate sponsorship ever on the table as an option to make up some of the shortfall?

Then there’s the matter of the money raised from the community by the South Canterbury Museum Development Trust – what happens with that? I suppose it will all have to be refunded to the donors.

Not to mention the money spent by the museum on designing a new venue with the technical specifications for safely displaying their collections to appropriate audience and conservation standards. Are they just out of pocket?

How have we gone from the council chief executive stating no alternative plans had been forthcoming, having been tasked with finding one in May, to suddenly two proposals from unnamed members of the public arriving like the proverbial buses in July?

“Plan B” appeared out of nowhere with a suspiciously well-developed architectural render for a month’s work. Where are the costings and technical specifications? Who designed it? It’s not exactly an example of iconic architecture.

The idea that a massive purpose-built development could go on the site of Timaru District Library is absurd and simple vandalism. While not a listed building, the library is the only building in Timaru to have been designed by the renowned Christchurch firm of Warren and Mahoney.

It’s a striking, unusual modernist structure, specifically designed to have a low profile so as not to ruin the lines of sight to the three picturesque church towers in the area. And when did the library site come into consideration? There was no public consultation.

A building of the size proposed for a new hub on that site would overwhelm that beautiful precinct. Its vertical plan and footprint would consume the entire greenspace, which is supposedly one of the open green areas incorporated into the “Green Weave” in the council’s own CityTown Strategic Framework.

That’s without even getting to the horrendous expense to the council and ratepayers of preparing the site and restructuring and amalgamating three whole council entities – many tens of millions of dollars. And where would the parking go? It’s barely adequate as it is.

As for Mr Trainor’s declaration that if either of those suggestions were chosen, the Theatre Royal would be sold or demolished, respectfully, who, in the first place, would buy it? And second, the theatre is a beautiful Heritage NZ Category 2 listed building, and a Category B heritage building in the Timaru District Plan. That’s a lot of expensive red tape for demolition.

Even getting around that, the cost to ratepayers of demolition and making the land usable could itself run, again, to the many tens of millions. As far as I’m aware it’s primarily clay, very likely contaminated from a century of use and would require an archaeological survey as a site associated with human activity prior to 1900 – parts of the structure date to 1877 – under the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act 2014.

Why wreck just one Timaru icon when you can wreck two for twice the price? I appreciate that the issues are incredibly challenging, and the budget creep nothing short of a scandal – let’s be honest, the fault lies with Council meddling in the original plan – but to quote The Mandalorian, this is not the way.

All I can see coming from the current trajectory is yet more procrastination, more delays, more meddling, and more expense, until our wonderful theatre goes the way of the Hydro Grand.