Town Planning Delays

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21908, 8 October 1936, Page 10

Town Planning Delays

At the beginning of next week representatives of the Christchurch City Council and the Town Planning Board will meet in an endeavour to settle the quarrel over points of detail which has held up the Christchurch town planning scheme for three years. The most important of these points is a clause in the scheme prohibiting the erection of terraced houses, which the board regards as unreasonable. The council, according to the chairman of its town planning committee, is now prepared to compromise to the extent of allowing the erection of terraced houses under certain conditions, though admittedly the concession is more apparent than real. But there is no good reason why the council should compromise at all, unless it be for the sake of avoiding further delay. The council is far more competent to decide what type of building is desirable in Christchurch than is the Town Planning Board, the duty of which should be to pronounce on the general adequacy of the zoning provisions and not on details. What makes the present impasse the more absurd is that the local town planning committee and its experts have a far better knowledge of town planning than the board, which for the greater part of its career has been inactive and without any expert assistance at all. If the conference next week fails to reach a final agreement, an appeal should be made to the Minister for Internal Affairs,