Artist’s home saved from demolition
Renowned New Zealand artist Bill Sutton’s former home and studio in Christchurch’s residential red zone has been saved from demolition.
Instead, it will be restored and gifted to the city.
Greater Christchurch Regeneration Minister Megan Woods yesterday announced plans to save and restore Sutton’s former Templar St, Richmond home, which was built in 1963.
Sutton, who was was wellknown for his landscape and portrait pieces, painted nearly all his works there until his retirement in 1992.
After Sutton’s death in 2002, former senior curator at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery Neil Roberts bought the house.
Roberts intended to leave it to the city for an artists in residence scheme, but sold it to the Crown after the residential area was declared a red zone.
Woods said the home would be restored for future generations to visit due to its ‘‘very special cultural and heritage significance’’.
The house, studio and garden is currently owned by the Crown and managed by Land Information New Zealand. It will be gifted to the city of Christchurch later this year.
The house has been burgled several times since it was redzoned, with large steel driveway gates, metal spouting and terracotta pots from Italy stolen.
Woods also announced temporary projects in the residential red zone will be able to run for up to five years, up from the current two-year restriction.
She said transitional projects were ‘‘great ways of adding life to the Red Zone and making good use of that land while its permanent future is decided’’.
‘‘This is about backing local people to have great ideas for that area and giving them up to five years to develop them, allowing them the space and time to make those ideas a reality.’’
The long-term future of the 602-hectare river red zone is not yet known, with work by planning organisation Regenerate Christchurch recently under criticism for repeated delays.
One city councillor described its efforts as ‘‘eternal consultation and talk, and not a lot of action’’.
A month-long public exhibition displaying up to three preferred options for the land is expected to be announced ‘‘soon’’, but Regenerate have not specified when.
After the public exhibition, Regenerate will come up with a draft plan for the red zone, expected be ready in November. Woods would then need to approve the plan before work could start.
Woods said deciding and delivering on the long-term use of the red zone was ‘‘a generation long task’’ and a ‘‘30-year project’’.
She said there was an area nearly four times the size of Hagley Park available for the city to make use of.
‘‘We want to see exciting things happen in that space.
‘‘The announcement is about helping to make that happen.’’