Remuera Heritage Annual Report to 31 March 2025

Nau mai haere mai, tena koutou katoa; welcome to members and friends, Troy Churton, Sarah Powrie and Margaret Voyce of the Orakei Local Board, and our special guest tonight, Sally Hughes of the Character Coalition.

Last year I talked a lot about planning and Auckland Council’s Plan Change 78 on housing intensification and the removal of the Special Character Area Overlays from Remuera properties. Hearings were delayed for one year into 2025/26 apart from those regarding the City Centre. Councils are now allowed to choose whether to support, remove or make planning decisions optional in this area but it’s still unclear what Auckland Council will do, and whether central government will allow them to do it.

Remuera Heritage supports the Character Coalition in its efforts to employ experts in planning, heritage and legal matters. The Chair did identify areas of concern in Remuera, but Remuera Heritage engaged Graeme Burgess, of Burgess and Treep heritage architects, to work through a street-by-street analysis of Remuera.

They have met with Auckland Council and it is clear that PC78 was driven by a planning perspective, not by a heritage or special character approach. Auckland Council’s methodology was designed to exclude special character, not to include it. The current Auckland Unitary Plan also allows for the development of nearly one million houses in Auckland over the next 20 years.

The planning scene is very complex and it’s still a matter for the experts in planning, heritage, and law. The political context is also very complex.

We’ve also spent a considerable amount of effort this past year renewing our Constitution. The Incorporated Societies Act 1908 was replaced by the Act of 2022, and every incorporated society has had to re-register. Our constitution has gone from 5 pages to 19 pages! There is greater emphasis on transparency, conflicts of interest, dispute resolution procedures and having proper procedures in place for committees and officers.

Events in 2024/25

We had the usual great number of events in 2024/25.These included:

• Remuera Short Stories and Memories. This year was a successful repeat with Jeanette De Heer talking about her memoirs, the latest being Walking Back to Happiness (2024), complete with excellent photos from her time overseas as a young woman in the 1960s.
• David Morris spoke about his childhood growing up on Remuera Rd in the 1940s and 50s with his father and him being surgeons at Auckland Hospital.

https://remueraheritage.org.nz/story/dr-david-morris-growing-up-in-remuera-in-the-1940s-and-50s/

• Boris Bogdanovic from Heritage New Zealand talked about his fascinating career as a Historic Architecture & Cultural Heritage Specialist in heritage conservation in the Middle East.
• We had a fabulous Christmas party in December at the house of the Sadlers – special thanks to the Sadlers for accommodating 60 people at their beautiful home.
• Remuera Heritage adopted the famous Remuera tram number 44 at MOTAT. For that we were offered a special behind-the-scenes tour of the tram barn at Western Springs and at an offsite storage facility. And of course, we got to ride on the Remuera tram. Thanks to James Duncan, special projects manager and volunteer tram driver and Alba, the collections manager at MOTAT, we had a wonderful, informative and humorous experience that “exceeded expectations”! See our display of photos from this visit in the heritage cabinet.
• It was especially great to return to the restored Remuera Library in April and have Antony Matthews, heritage architect, talk about the restoration of the building.
• The Auckland Heritage Festival is on again in September/October 2025 with the theme of Auckland at Play: a celebration of sport and play. We are going to rework the Remuera Sports Quiz that I did in 2011!

Heritage properties

‘Remuera’s Century-Old Homes’ campaign to capture and share the stories of some of Remuera’s many historic homes and buildings continues.  We have identified residences and buildings that have a special place in our built heritage, where the house and/or its people have made a meaningful contribution to the story of Remuera, Auckland and in some cases New Zealand. The Heritage Studio is doing one this year on 228 Orakei Road which was a gin distillery before it became Orakei Bay Village.

Committee

Finally, I would like to thank our Patron John Strevens and the wonderful committee for their commitment and company: Stuart Hayman, our secretary, Gavan Jackson, treasurer, Bryan Haggitt, Brian Cooper, Rebecca Washer, Susan Geerlings, Sue Jackson & Sue Johnston of Remuera Library, who provide us with this wonderful venue and great refreshments!

Also, thanks to the Orakei Local Board for their ongoing support – Scott Milne, Sarah Powrie, Penny Tucker, Margaret Voyce, David Wong and especially Troy Churton for his planning and resource consent knowledge, plus our wonderful Councillor Desley Simpson.

Sue Cooper, Chair.

10 June 2025