Hotel v heritage ‘eyesore’
A hotel developer claims a recently restored heritage building will remain a ‘‘damp, suppurating and empty mausoleum’’ unless another historic ‘‘eyesore’’ next door is demolished.
Lee Pee Ltd, a company owned by Hong Kong-based lawyer Gerard McCoy and his wife, Sze Siu Wai McCoy, took out a fullpage advertisement in The Press outlining their efforts to build a luxury eight-storey, 150-room hotel on the site of the quakedamaged Harley Chambers.
It criticised objectors to the scheme, including the manager of The George Hotel, a neighbouring law firm and the Canterbury
Club.
The lengthy defence of the project described Harley Chambers as a ‘‘tottering dowager countess in her dotage’’ and likened the council’s consenting process to Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch.
Lee Pee had sought consent from the Christchurch City Council to demolish the landmark former medical rooms on Cambridge Tce, and to pull down a 1950s addition to Worcester Chambers, a restored Georgian revival building next door in Worcester St that would be incorporated into the hotel design.
Both buildings have a category-two listing with Heritage New Zealand (HNZ) which did not oppose the demolitions, provided the facade and front 6.5 metres of Worcester Chambers were retained, and innovative heating systems in Harley Chambers were recorded.
According to HNZ southern region director Sheila Watson Harley Chambers was ‘‘too broken’’ and difficult to use for other purposes because of the large number of concrete pillars.
‘‘We’re not saying this [demolition] is a good idea, but there are circumstances where the situation is such that it is not an unreasonable option.’’
The council received 42 submissions on the demolition application – 23 against, two neutral and 17 in support.
Head of resource consents John Higgins said the application was put on hold at the request of the applicant after submissions closed mid-April. In response to criticism of the planning process he said there was ‘‘little scope to deviate from that process as it is heavily prescribed’’.
Planz Consultants associate Matt Bonis, who handled the consent application along with Wynn Williams lawyers, said they were both unaware of the advertisement until they saw it in the newspaper. He said Lee Pee director Gerard McCoy was flying back from Hong Kong for a meeting in Christchurch on Friday. He hoped to find out then whether the project would proceed.
Efforts by The Press to contact McCoy or his Christchurch representative were unsuccessful, but the Lee Pee advertisement
said investors were ‘‘completely disillusioned’’ by the planning process which could end up in court for years. That meant the buildings would remain as they were now – ‘‘uninhabitable, unusable, unsightly’’.
Objector Ross Gray, acting chair of the Civic Trust and deputy chair of Historic Places Canterbury, said the buildings concerned were at the heart of an extremely sensitive heritage precinct and any further loss of heritage buildings in the area was unthinkable.
‘‘The developer’s extravagant, feverish and, in places, misleading full-page newspaper advertisement should be seen for what it is – an attempt to bulldoze opponents of the project out of the way and to publicly shame them.’’
Both the Canterbury Club and law firm Lane Neave were concerned the eight-storey hotel would tower over their buildings, which would also be affected by pile driving and excavations during the 36-month construction phase.
The George Hotel manager Bruce Garrett said that with more than 500 hotel rooms under construction in the city ‘‘we don’t need to be demolishing heritage to create another one’’.
City councillor Jamie Gough and his property investor father Tracy Gough sold restored Worcester Chambers to Lee Pee and he sympathised with the developer’s frustration. ‘‘Sadly the anti-brigade get a lot of traction.’’
Even after restoration it was impossible to tenant the chamber’s offices because the derelict building next door attracted vagrants, drug users and graffiti, he said.
Support also came from Recovery agency Regenerate Christchurch, which said the development could revitalise the site, and from Christchurch developer Nick Hunt described the hotel plan as too good an opportunity to miss. ‘‘If this is rejected we will be left with deteriorating buildings and slum-like properties.’’