Two houses from the early 1900s have been demolished to make way for a new Chinese Embassy despite opposition from locals.

Photo: RNZ / Meriana Johnsen

The adjoining terraced houses on Tasman Street, across from the Basin Reserve, were built in an Edwardian style - the only buildings in the capital of that architectural style.

However, the houses did not have heritage status so the Embassy were legally allowed to demolish them.

Wellington City Councillor Nicola Young said she tried to emplore the Embassy to have them moved, but was only given two weeks before Christmas to remove them.

The deadline was "just not doable" as it did not allow enough time to get a resource consent, find someone to remove them and somewhere to put them.

"It's really sad that they're gone and maybe if people had thought about it 15 years ago something could have been to save them but by the time I got involved it was too late."

Felicity Wong, the chair of the charity Historic Places Wellington, said without the hertiage status protection nothing much could be done to protect the houses, which remained largely intact - the exterior had changed very little since 1912.

The council had commissioned a heritage architect to put a report together about what buildings should be protected in the District Plan, Ms Wong says, which included the two houses but she doesn't know why they didn't receive heritage status.

"I approached the council more than a year ago to ask them to list them but the heritage team said it wouldn't be possible to make an amendment to the district plan just for those buildings."

She also applied to Heritage New Zealand, but this would not provide any legal protection as it only provides recognition that the buildings are special.

"Wellington's in a very difficult situation because of the risk of earthquakes at the moment and the real big challenge for us is how we handle that need to strengthen so many buildings in Wellington including heritage buildings over the next few years."

"The government's put some money towards earthquake strengthing... but I do worry that it's not enough and I do really worry that more buildings could have this fate."

The consent for the Chinese Embassy is currently going through the council resource consent process.