The fate of the building, which was a Category 1 historic place, has been a point of contention in the capital since tenants were forced out in 2012.<\/p>\n
It has sat derelict at 320 The Terrace ever since, with heritage advocates calling for its restoration while others advocated for demolition and new development.<\/p>\n
Bishop, who has previously labelled the building an \u201ceyesore\u201d and \u201cugly scar\u201d on the city\u2019s skyline, said in June the amendment would remove the flats\u2019 protected heritage status and would make its demolition a permitted activity under the RMA, allowing demolition without a resource consent. <\/p>\n
Built in 1959 and designed by Government architect Gordon Wilson, the building is seen as a symbol of early social housing in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
In 2012, tenants were evicted after an engineer\u2019s report deemed it unsafe in the event of an earthquake or strong winds. It has remained vacant since and fallen into disrepair.<\/p>\n
It was then purchased by the university, which wanted to develop the site by building a multimillion-dollar gateway to the campus above, Te Huanui, made up of \u201cworld-class teaching and research facilities surrounded by lively civic spaces\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Gordon Wilson Flats in 1978. Photo \/ NZ Architect<\/p>\n
Its heritage status meant it could not be demolished.<\/p>\n
The Te Huanui project was canned last year in favour of student accommodation, as revealed by the Herald<\/a>.<\/p>\n The university\u2019s chief operating officer, Tina Wakefield, said the work is anticipated to begin later this month. <\/p>\n \u201cEnsuring the safety of our community is our highest priority through this phase of the project. There is significant work ahead to ensure that the demolition will be carried out with the utmost care, beginning with site preparation work in the coming weeks,\u201d Wakefield said.<\/p>\n Wakefield said the university is mindful of the impact and disruption demolition may cause, and it is committed to keeping neighbours informed throughout the process.<\/p>\n Ethan Manera<\/a> is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fate of the building, which was a Category 1 historic place, has been a point of contention…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,28246,674,2223,3588,31390,3372,45084,46009,40370,8993,6628,4486,111,43,139,69,6791,44093,1961,15900,1533,6038,4576],"class_list":["post-163403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-begin","tag-building","tag-confirmed","tag-cut","tag-demolition","tag-dubbed","tag-eyesore","tag-flats","tag-gordon","tag-heritage","tag-historic","tag-month","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-prominent","tag-status","tag-this","tag-wellingtons","tag-will","tag-wilson","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}