Heritage Resilience and Regeneration Fund

How it works

The Heritage Resilience and Regeneration Fund (HRRF) recognises the importance of strengthening Wellington’s earthquake-prone heritage buildings and conserving and restoring heritage buildings identified in the Wellington City District Plan Heritage List (684KB PDF) or buildings that contribute to Heritage areas (2.3MB PDF)

The HRRF provides targeted funding to assist owners of heritage buildings to undertake conservation and seismic strengthening works. We focus on priority earthquake prone areas that contribute to urban regeneration outcomes. Funding is provided where successful strengthening outcomes would be unlikely without assistance.

15% of the fund is reserved for conservation-specific work, while 85% is intended for work related to earthquake strengthening. Earthquake strengthening work can include:

• an initial engineering report or assessment
• the detailed design
• a grant towards actual strengthening work.

Eligibility

Officials identify priority heritage buildings for seismic strengthening and conservation restoration based on the eligibility criteria, and then invite owners of these buildings to apply for HRRF support.

Heritage building owners can also approach the Council directly with requests to have their building assessed against the eligibility criteria and our priorities.

Priority areas for HRRF funding

1. Courtenay Place (Heritage Area)
2. Newtown (Heritage Area)
3. Cuba Street (Heritage Area)
4. Adelaide Road/Riddiford Street
5. Willis Street/Manners Street
6. Island Bay (Heritage Area)
7. Hataitai (Heritage Area)
8. Vivian Street

The Council considers the following when determining which areas are prioritised for HRRF support:

• the heritage values of areas, as set out in the operative Wellington City District Plan
• the transport routes of strategic importance – with sufficient vehicular or pedestrian traffic – where parts of earthquake-prone buildings could fall in an earthquake
• the potential for positive and effective impact on the vitality of areas of urban regeneration in the city
• the Council’s infrastructure development projects and work programmes
• the potential for growth as defined in the Spatial Plan for Wellington City.

Different assessment criteria (110KB PDF) are applied when identifying the priority heritage buildings eligible for support for either conservation restoration work or seismic strengthening work.