Hearing To Determine Fate of Heritage Building In Bluff

The Bluff Club Hotel buildings should not be demolished until more is done to mitigate adverse heritage effects, a consultant planner for the Invercargill City Council has recommended.

A resource consent hearing will be underway tomorrow to consider an application from The Bluff Oyster and Food Festival Charitable Trust, that currently own the buildings.

Organisers need the dangerous building adjoining the popular festival site pulled down, so that its 2024 event can proceed, after it was cancelled this year.

Consultant planner Katrina Ellis said, in her report to the hearing, that without alterations to the proposal to achieve greater mitigation, compensation of offsetting of the heritage values, it was considered that adverse heritage effects were considered to be significant; the proposal was inconsistent with the objective and policies of the Invercargill City District Plan,  and the proposal does not achieve the purpose and principles of the Resource Management Act.

The festival committee had hoped the application would be approved and demolition before Christmas, to ensure the future of the Bluff Oyster and Food Festival.

The application in July received 26 submission, 23 in support of the hotel being demolished.

A dangerous and insanitary building notice was placed on the former hotel in 2022 after a structural engineering report found the veranda to be unsafe.

But the hotel was on a Heritage New Zealand site, and had a category 2 listed classification.

The four heritage listed buildings, which collectively make up the Club Hotel, are the only heritage listed buildings in Bluff.

Katrina said in her report there was an opportunity for the demolition to be granted if the applicant was to modify their proposal to provide a better design outcome, and greater use of the site to the extent that there was greater community benefit to compensate for the significant loss of heritage values.

“Subject to the extent of change, I consider then that the effects could be acceptable, and the proposal will achieve sustainable management.”