TOWN PLANNING BILL.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 244, 12 October 1917, Page 6

TOWN PLANNING BILL.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—The Civic League is to be congratulated on its pronouncement, as reported in your columns, in reference to any Town Planning Acts of Parliament proposed for New Zealand, and I sincerely hope tho efforts of tho League and other interested bodies will rouse public opinion to the importance of tho question. It is generally recognised that this is the time to put our house in order preparatory to possible developments after the war. and people need reminding that civic pride and local

patriotism include, amongst other | things, the consideration ot" future j town conditions. The danger, especially at the moment, is that a Government, forced to deal in some way with* the question of town planning, may ; take the line of least resistance by establishing a bureaucratic body of oflicials as a super-town planning authority, and tliie would entirely defeat the object. Any sound scheme of development ought to be on expression of the general will and aspirations of the people, guided and crystallised. n.s it were, by specialists, and certainly not the cut-and-dried plan of officialism. The town planning authority should therefore include representative* of local corporations and experta in the main branches of industries and the professions. Women should have a place on the Council, and Labour should also be represented. Any scheme is almost sure to affect prejudicially the rights and properties of some individuals and local bodies, hence the need of cooperation with thorn ns against a system that would only lead to irritation and opposition. Apparently the French Act is designed in the broader spirit thus indicated, and it ie to be hoped that the experience of our brave Allies, whose capital city ie admittedly the finest in the world, will not be' disre-» •rarded by our lejri-lator R when dealing with a matter that must be more or less unfamiliar to most of them.—l am, etl - F. E. POWELL.