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• A Mt Eden villa owner has been ordered by Auckland Council to remove double-glazed windows from their home because they violate heritage rules. 
• The Government argues this highlights the need to relax planning laws as it aims to streamline building processes. 
• Heritage groups warn that relaxing rules could endanger Auckland’s historic homes and neighbourhoods. 

A Mt Eden villa owner says it’s “total idiocy” Auckland Council is demanding they remove double-glazed windows from their house to comply with heritage rules, claiming the order is expensive and unnecessary. 

The Government is also seizing on the issue to show why it believes planning laws need to be relaxed. 

However, Auckland Council and a heritage protection group say the rules are needed to preserve the city’s beautiful historic homes before they’re lost forever. 

Current special character area rules require owners to get council approval before making most types of alterations to the outside of homes, especially street-facing exteriors, in historic neighbourhoods. 

Auckland Council has ordered a Mt Eden villa owner to remove double-glazed windows from their heritage area home. Photo / Dean Purcell 

The Mt Eden owners of the Paice Ave home didn’t get a resource consent before installing about 10 new double-glazed windows on their villa. 

The window replacements didn’t change the large timber frames surrounding the window blocks. 

However, the new windows came with aluminium framing and joinery that was different to the old wooden frames around the glass panes, which council said detracted from the street’s character. 

Alex Witten-Hannah, a lawyer representing the homeowners, called a council abatement notice ordering them to seek planning approval or remove the new windows as “lunacy” and hoped officials would back down as a show of “common sense”. 

A Mt Eden villa owner has been told to remove double-glazed windows from their home because they violate heritage rules. Photo / Dean Purcell 

“They’re basically saying no matter what you’re planning, you can’t do anything to a historic house,” he said. 

He said double-glazing was environmental best practice and the new windows didn’t look significantly different from the old ones. 

Seeking council approval for such minor work took too long and was expensive, he said. 

“If the wooden window frames had been ripped out ... or some other thing that was out of keeping, I could understand it,” he said. 

The villa on Paice Ave, Mt Eden, pictured in June 2022. Auckland Council says it shows its windows had the original wooden frames that slid up and down. Photo / Google Maps (June 2022) 

It comes as the Government has announced it will replace the Resource Management Act with two new planning laws – the Planning Act and a Natural Environment Act. 

Minister Chris Bishop said the aim is to streamline rules to make it easier to build, especially along transport corridors in big cities, and to give private owners more freedom to develop and alter their properties. 

“On the face of it”, the Paice Ave owner’s stoush with council “looks nuts ... [and] is exactly why we are replacing the RMA with new legislation”, he said. 

“Stupid requirements like these imposed on private property by councils restrict development, cost Kiwis thousands, and deliver zero benefit.” 

Councils would be expected to give greater consideration to how character and heritage area rules impact private property rights under the new planning rules, Bishop said. 

However, lobby groups say Auckland’s historic villas and neighbourhoods add value to the whole city and its residents that is economic and cultural – and once lost, it can never be recovered. 

Some fear the new Government plans will be a death knell to heritage. 

That’s because allowing repeat alterations to historic homes could make it easier to delist individual villas or strip entire neighbourhoods of their value, expert Allan Matson earlier told the Herald. 

A photo of the Mt Eden villa's front windows taken by Auckland Council staff, who say it shows the windows now open differently and have aluminium framing and joinery in a manner that is different from the street's heritage value. 

Sally Hughes, chairwoman of Character Coalition, which comprises about 60 heritage and community groups, also fears relaxed rules could be a slippery slope to losing many more kauri villas and bungalows. 

She sympathised with the Mt Eden villa owners and said the coalition’s groups were flexible, supporting owners to “push out the backs of their villas” and complete major renovations. 

However, special character areas represented only 2.5% of Auckland’s land area and those living there should follow the rules and check with council before acting. 

“It’s the front of the house where they are wanting the streetscape to remain the same. If you buy into a special character area that’s the deal.” 

Auckland Council staff also took photos of the back of the villa showing its new windows. 

Council’s heritage manager Noel Reardon said “timber windows are a highly distinctive feature of Auckland’s cottages, villas and bungalows” in special character areas. 

“In the case of a late 19th century villa like Paice Ave, vertically hung, sliding sash timber-framed windows made from native timber were the standard construction method of the time,” he said. 

The owners’ window replacement included “replacing the original timber sliding sash windows with aluminium framed top-hinged windows ... retaining only the original timber surrounds and sills”. 

While council had ordered the owners to seek resource consent or change the windows back to their original state, Reardon said there were several glaziers in Auckland who could install double-glazed panes into the historic wooden frames. 

“This method of double-glazing a special character home does not require resource consent.” 

The council understood that some homeowners may be frustrated by the extra rules in character areas, Reardon said. 

“However, if these historic houses lose their architectural features over time, the special character of the area is degraded and the justification for protecting these historic neighbourhoods is lost.”