However, an adjoining building, St Mary's Chapel, will be preserved and strengthen.

The chapel was built for the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions, a congregation of mission and teaching nuns. The sisters lived in Euphrasie House.

With a budget of $1 million, the conservation comprises two stages.

First Stage

The first stages will cost $6000.00. It will by funded by donations:

• The corridor connecting the chapel to Euphrasie House will be demolished
• The chapel earthquake strengthened
• External architectural work will be carried out
• A new electrical power supply installed.
• The statues in the chapel will be restored

Second Stage

The remaining $400,000 is dependent on ongoing fund-raising, with a suggested time frame for stage two to begin in October and completed by December 2016.

So far the corridor link has been disconnected and excavation work is completed.

Construction of new concrete foundations have begun and the outer skin of existing brick-wall panels has been removed, ready for new reinforced concrete wall panels.

Sister Mary-Ellen O'Sullivan, Sister Barbara Cameron, Sister Colleen Morey and Sister Raewyn Hogan all still live nearby and have fond memories of the chapel.

They are all glad to see the chapel restored.

"Especially for the purpose for which they are going to renovate it: to keep it traditional but to give people a contemplative space in the city," Sister Barbara said.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

It's feared the outcome could hasten the demolition of other heritage buildings as owners try to avoid costly earthquake-strengthening fix-ups.

In a 32-page decision, the Environment Court upheld a decision to grant resource consent for the demolition of the 1939 Spanish-revival-styled convent and hostel - despite the building's A-historic rating in the council's new district plan. Continue reading

The consent supported by the Hamilton City Council, was sought and granted by independent commissioner Murray Kivell in April 2013.

Last week the Environment Court heard an appeal against that decision by the Hamilton East Community Trust against

The trust was awarded $38,000 from the Ministry for the Environment's Environmental Legal Assistance Fund to help with the appeal.

Phil Lang, counsel for the diocese, said demolition was appropriate due to the huge cost - about $2 million - to earthquake-strengthen the building. This created "serious financial hardship", he said.

Lang said even if the diocese was forced to keep it and it was strengthened, they wouldn't use the building anyway, due to fears that it would still pose an earthquake risk.

Trust counsel Robert Makgill told the hearing Euphrasie House was a category 2 building - meaning it wouldn't need earthquake strengthening until March 31, 2030.

However, City Council lawyer Theresa Le Bas said there had been an "administrative error" and it was in fact a category 1 - with a 2019 deadline.

A new two-storey diocesan centre is planned in its place.

The smaller chapel, with a Historic Places ranking and higher heritage value, is to be retained.

Source

• The Waikato Times
• The Waikato Times
• Image: Flickr

The Hamilton East Community Trust (HECT) is still fighting to keep the pre-World War II Spanish mission-style convent standing, despite the church diocese gaining consent to demolish the 74-year-old building. The diocese says it cannot afford earthquake upgrading that the building needs, and wants to demolish it and instead build a two-storey diocesan centre on the site.

The trust has appealed the consent decision to the Environment Court.

Its proposal to the diocese to save the iconic building, including costings for strengthening, extension and refurbishment, put the likely bill at $4.1m.

Diocese working party member Peter Egan said the proposal wouldn't work. Read More

What that moniker frequently amounts to is simply the blatant destruction of buildings which often possess heritage value, history and old world charm. Knock it down and put up something cheap and nasty in its place epitomises all that's mercenary, base and soulless in the New Zealand psyche.

One can speculate as to why so much architectural beauty and buildings of historical character in this country have simply been destroyed by the careless swipe of a swing-ball or bulldozer blade. Some have suggested it's to do with the fact that New Zealand is a young country. We're mere adolescents in historical terms and thus behave accordingly. Unlike other more established European nations, Pakeha culture adds up to a paltry 170 years. We are shallow in the soil, as New Zealand commentator Monte Holcroft once observed, the consequences of which are we haven't grown up, matured or developed a strong sense of time and place and its importance to us as a people. We're opportunists, incapable, like teenagers, of either looking forward too far or back.

Others, in an attempt to explain our cavalier attitude to heritage, point to our rough and gruff nature, the "she'll be right" attitude that goes with a certain careless stance or the more brutal, "put the boot in" call. Continue reading

Sources

• Peter Dornauf in The Waikato Times
• Image: Stuff / The Waikato Times

Peter Dornauf is a Hamilton artist, writer and teacher.