The Press THURSDAY, MAY 14, 1959. Colombo Street

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28894, 14 May 1959, Page 14

The Press THURSDAY, MAY 14, 1959. Colombo Street

The Christchurch City Council will have the opportunity on Monday of reopening its consideration of the width of Colombo street. The proposal before it, to require the ground floor of new buildings to be set back while the upper storeys may jut out to the present building line, is not an alternative to footpath widening. It would not make eventual widening of the carriageway feasible; and, as buildings go higher, it would make Colombo street a dark ravine. However, Cr. W. S. Mac Gibbon’s motion can be welcomed if it leads councillors to think a little more clearly on the issues involved. One of these, of course, is the waste of money in building elaborate street works at the railway line and Moorhouse avenue to facilitate the flow of traffic into Colombo street if they are to end in traffic jams. Another issue, which seems to have been overlooked, is the interest of land-owners in preserving the value of their properties in Colombo street. It seems to have been taken for granted that owners ought to be implacably opposed to the surrender of a small strip of land, usually of no great significance to a building site though of great importance to the street as a whole. Is that

really the attitude of landowners? Or is it, rather, that no-one has bothered to explain to them the advantages of street widening and the disadvantages of leaving the street more or less as it is? Do they understand, for instance, how attractive to their customers wider streets and footpaths could be and how their business might be retained against suburban competition by imaginative planning? On the other hand, have they considered the certainty that a street of inadequate width ■would drive business away? The prohibition of parking in Colombo street seems certain fairly soon; and the stopping of cars may have to be prohibited. If motor traffic grows to the volume predicted, it is even possible that public transport might be driven out of a narrow street. Further light may be thrown on such possibilities by the master traffic plan, which is an excellent reason for deferring any approval of building out to the present line until the plan has been completed. If for no other reason, the council would be wise to restore in the meantime the widening provision that it so hastily revoked. Propertyowners could profitably use the interval by inquiring into how much they stand to lose from too narrow a street.