Photo: Janna Sherman / Hokitika Guardian
The draft Te Tai o Poutini Plan includes guidelines on what colours buildings can be painted in the main West Coast towns.
The guidelines come with a range of recommendations around building style and colour. They specify heritage precincts in Reefton and Hokitika, while acknowledging all the Coast towns have a proportion of existing older heritage buildings.
Principal planner Lois Easton said the proposed guidelines were discretionary, and not a hard and fast rule.
"They're design guidelines -- they are to help people."
The draft plan cites the bright green of Hokitika Subway in Weld Street and the bright blue of Super Liquor in Revell Street as examples of block colour "inappropriately used".
"They are not in keeping with the surrounding area, and also being used as a sign to advertise a product," the draft says.
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It also includes examples of high impact modern building style impacting on the existing character of a town centre such as the Westport Mitre 10 building in Palmerston Street.
"Those kinds of buildings do change the character of the town centre a lot," Easton said.
"It's not trying to say these are terrible buildings but if you are building in the town centre, that's not the kind of style we want.
"While Westport and to a lesser extent Hokitika did not have a lot of new development in the pipeline, significant change was expected in Greymouth and design guidelines would be useful, she said.
For the main commercial centres the guide recommends colours:
- Consistent with the existing range of colours in the town centre.
- Side and rear walls be the same colour as the main facade.
- Bright colour use to call attention to a building are "not acceptable".
- Use of one block colour "as a sign" to brand the building is out.
However, murals on side and rear walls of commercial buildings were acceptable.
"In these cases colours can deviate from the building's main facade."
In the Greymouth CBD, colours consistent with the pounamu and Māori heritage colour palette are recommended though not enforced.
Easton said once ratified, the guidelines would be there to assist project planning and to provide the architect with a context for any new building or development.
"They're meant to help people."
The Reefton heritage town provisions section recommends "original colour schemes" be restored where possible, using a pre-1920 heritage colour chart which "does not include blue".
Easton said the question of excluding blue as a paint colour in Reefton came after a long discussion with the Reefton heritage group, which pointed out it was not an exterior paint colour until the 1920s.
The draft plan also designates part of Revell Street in Hokitika as a "special character area" to guide development.
That street's historic value was particularly highlighted by publication of Eleanor Catton's Booker prizewinning novel The Luminaries.
Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air