Demolition threat alarms fortification fans

Residents and military history guardians are up in arms at threats to the future of Kennedy Park’s World War II-era fortifications.

Options put up by Auckland Council staff include permanently sealing off the site’s tunnels and demolishing a unique but dilapidated former barracks building.

This suggestion has blindsided the Castor Bay Ratepayers and Residents Association and the Kennedy Park World War II Installations Preservation Trust.

The groups have jointly launched a public petition to save the installations, which include two gun emplacements. They have also written to Heritage New Zealand and the Minister for Arts and Culture.

“We’re really disappointed to get to this stage,” said association chair Hamish Anderson. “We’re talking about a Heritage-listed site, Category 1.”

Trust chair Chris Owen, who runs tours of the tunnels and has long lobbied to better protect and promote them, is similarly dismayed. The men learned the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board was presented with options at a recent confidential workshop. Taking place against the background of council budget cuts, council staff talked board members through choices from closure to what Owen described as at best benign neglect, with necessary maintenance left on hold.

“Long term-heritage decisions should not be made for short-term budget reasons,” Anderson told the Observer. Any move to demolish the barracks would require a resource consent, which Owen said the trust would oppose.

What especially stings is that the current predicament follows what Anderson and Owen say has been years of inaction by successive local boards and councillors. Maintenance has not met promises and the installations have significantly deteriorated.

Both are realistic that a costly full restoration of the fenced-off old barracks at 139 Beach Rd is unlikely in the short-term, but they want its exterior made watertight and leaks in the tunnels tended to.

“It’s about legacy and we don’t want to be the ratepayers association who sit by and watch these things run into the ground,” Anderson said. The park was loved and well-used by locals and had the potential to be a significant visitor attraction. Yet it appeared to be the forgotten fortification

Tour the tunnels

The next chance to see inside Kennedy Park’s tunnels is on Sunday, 11 June.

Tours run between 11am and 2pm and last about 30 minutes.

They are held monthly and include an outline of the history of the fortifications by trust members.

Gold coin koha is collected, with money raised going towards the trust’s operations. Find out more at www.kennedypark. org.nz compared with the better-known ones in Devonport on Maungauika and Takarunga and at Fort Takapuna, Narrow Neck.

Owen said: “A bottom line in my perspective is to not take any action at this stage that would preclude preservation in the future.”

The barracks was designed to resemble a house, in an example in military heritage of so-called deception architecture and is now believed to be the only one of its kind left in New Zealand and rare internationally. It was later used as a state house, with council then acquiring the land it stood on to add to the heritage precinct at Kennedy Park.

Anderson said he remembered the “huge excitement” when North Shore ward councillor Chris Darby told the association’s annual meeting in 2017 that confirmed funding had been set aside to restore it. This amounted to $900,000.

“Not enough maintenance work has been done on the house and tunnels and now they’re in very poor condition,” Anderson said.

The men were briefed by local-board chair Toni van Tonder on the options raised by staff. While they appreciated her reasoning that budget discussions be held in a confidential meeting, Anderson said it was “a bit of a kick in the guts” discussions were not held earlier.

Van Tonder said no decisions or any posi- tion had yet been taken by the board.

She told the Observer members had called for “a lot more information” from council staff. They expected to discuss this at another workshop expected early next month.

Heritage assets were a testing issue, particularly in this area which had a lot of them, she said. They also included the PumpHouse in Takapuna and the Claystore in Devonport. Getting more council or private support to preserve such assets would be ideal because the board’s own budgets were already under cost-cutting pressure and had to stretch many ways to service community needs.

There was simply “not enough money” to do all it might wish. “We’re going to have to make some tough calls.”

Van Tonder suggested sorting out the future of the barracks should be a priority, given how rundown the building looked. “In a better world we would restore it and open it up.”

Anderson said the barracks had potential to become a community facility, given the building is larger than the park’s two-storey Observation Post, which is already used by groups as a council-owned meeting venue for hire.

“We don’t have for Castor Bay a safe local evacuation and meeting point in case of emergency. If 139 [Beach Rd] was restored, it could fulfil that purpose.”

Call to action

Heritage campaigners are calling on those interested in preserving the Kennedy Park military installations to sign their petition. This can be read at change.org/p/savekennedy-park

Deceptive... An old photo shows one of the gun bunkers when it had a false roof, so from above or at distance it looked like a house

They are also urging people to email Auckland Councillors for the North Shore ward, Richard Hills and Chris Darby, and local board representatives, copying the residents group at cbrra@gmail.com and following its campaign online.