Developer says Trust blocking plans to save Erskine

Tuesday, July 1st, 2014

Property developer Ian Cassels says he needs community support to sway Save Erskine College Trust towards his plans for Erskine College, a landmark building in Island Bay Wellington, New Zealand.

In 2012 the building was red-stickered as an earthquake risk, and might be demolished by Wellington City Council within a year unless the trust agreed to his latest plan for the site, Cassels said.

He says he had already spent $1.5 million on the site, and would not invest more, only to have his plans blocked at the last hurdle.

Cassels has proposed a $15m to $20m townhouse development, and would use the resulting profits to preserve the chapel, reverend mother’s garden and a quarter of the four-storey convent building, all of which would be gifted to a trust.

He would not financially benefit from the arrangement, he said.

Nat Dunning from Save Erskine College Trust, said there would be no urgency to decide the college’s fate if Cassels would repair the building instead of practising “demolition by neglect”.

The trust was open to a housing development on the site, but its mission was to preserve its heritage, he said.

Heritage New Zealand and the Wellington City Council supported most of Cassels’ plan, but want him to preserve more of the convent building.

Erskine College was built in 1905-06. It was called the Convent of the Sacred Heart until the late 1960s, when it was renamed in honour of former Superior General of the Society of the Sacred Heart, Mother Janet Erskine Stuart. The school closed in 1985.

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