Manufacturers Object To Town Plan Scheme

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28958, 28 July 1959, Page 12

Manufacturers Object To Town Plan Scheme

On the advice of its solicitors, a blanket objection has been lodged by the Canterbury Manufacturers’ Association to the district town planning scheme of the Christchurch City Council. The objection would enable members to make specific objections later, the president (Mr J. R. Maddren) said at last evening’s meeting of the council of the association.

The town planning scheme was giving manufacturers a tremendous amount of concern, said Mr Maddren. Undoubtedly, a number of persons had put in a great amount of thought and effort to the construction of the plan; but from what angle, he did not know. It was not constructed from the industrial angle, but from the angle of building fine residences, or something like that. For industry, the plan was doing the worst possible. “Unless we have a planning committee that looks forward, it will be impossible to keep industry, let alone attracting new industry,” said Mr Maddren. For security, industry had to have a guarantee of expansion. If a thriving industry was now in a district classed as residential, as had happened at Woolston, and could no longer expand, obviously the planning committee was asking that a “for sale” notice be put on the building in the not too distant future. It was all very well to have residences, but there had to be buildings in which people could work, and they should be close to their homes.

There was a building in the city which the plan would not allow to be extended beyond two storeys, said Mr Maddren. That was absolutely ridiculous. “We have to take a firm stand, because it is a matter of life and death to many industries, because, unless the position is clarified, it will grind the industrial progress of Christchurch to a halt." said Mr Maddren. “We should make our views very clearly known. We are not going to sit quietly by and have this thing wrapped round us. It is of vital importance to our members

and to us aS individual manufacturers.”

No town planning could take place unless bodies were represented on the committee, said Mr E. C. Munt. The City Council’s committee was not representative. Shift of Industry Many industries in Christchurch had their major market in the North Island and if conditions were going to be such that they could not see satisfactory and certain expansion of their factories and because of the cost of the transportation of the finished products, they would "up stakes' and go to the North Island, said Mr W. A. Bascand. Many longestablished industries in Canterbury were finding their markets changing to the North Island There was a lure in the north and it would not take much to make it a jerk. While he agreed with the remarks, Mr L. H. Govan said the association had to enter into the planning question with a certain amount of co-operation with the planners of the city. No law, either local or national, failed to hurt somebody. It was open to them to object to the planning scheme: his company was objecting on three counts. “If we enter into this with a spirit of co-operation, sanity will prevail in the end.” said Mr Govan. “If the scheme does not tread on somebody’s toes, we might as well not have it. There has to be give and take.” All should study the code of ordinances under the scheme, said Mr Govan. By studying it, his company found that it could not build beyond one storey at the rear of its building, because the rear was on an alleway classed as a public street, yet it could build up to six storeys in front.

All ordinances overrode the bylaws of the city, said Mr Bascand.