Case Study 3.1: Dunedin City Council Planning for Adaptive Reuse

The Dunedin City Council proposed including a number of planning incentives in its 2nd Generation District Plan, aimed at encouraging and facilitating the adaptive reuse of heritage buildings. These included exemptions from requirements, which recognised the difficulty of heritage buildings meeting standard provisions without affecting heritage values, and more enabling rules around activities such as repairs and maintenance, restoration and earthquakestrengthening, and other upgrades required by the Building Act 2004.

The council has tried to take this a step further by offering planning incentives within its zoning framework. The range of activities permitted for heritage buildings in two city-fringe zones is broader than that for non-heritage buildings, to provide additional use and development opportunities for heritage buildings. In the Smith Street/York Place Zone, commercial office activity is only provided for in heritage buildings, recognising the compatibility of this use with the style of heritage buildings in the area.

In the Warehouse Precinct Zone, retail activities are only provided for in scheduled heritage buildings, rather than in all buildings in the zone. This provides a number of heritage benefits: for instance, while offering an additional adaptive reuse option for the former warehouses in the area, it tries to avoid spreading retail activities too broadly in the city at a time when retail growth is low. It also discourages any potential inducements to demolish existing buildings and replace them with new retail buildings that might emerge if retail were permitted in the zone. Finally, it provides an incentive for owners to schedule their buildings for heritage protection in order to take advantage of this dispensation.

The proximity to the CBD and size of heritage houses motivated the Dunedin City Council to adopt a differentiated planning approach in the York Place area.

PHOTO CREDIT: ALAN DOVE