Town Planning ’Tedious’

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30998, 2 March 1966, Page 1

Town Planning ’Tedious’

GV.Z. Press Association)

AUCKLAND, March 1.

The processes of town planning were tedious. frustrating and extremely complicated legally, technically and administratively. Professor R. T. Kennedy, head of the town planning department at Auckland University, said today.

Many were driven half mad when they became involved in the processes of the town and country planning acts and regulations, he said. Professor Kennedy was addressing the annual conference of the New Zealand Institute of Town Clerks and Municipal Treasurers at the Auckland Town Hall. He said there was a failure in explaining to the public why planning schemes were necessary-

Local planning authorities also failed to explain their planning policy in terms that the public could understand, appreciate and endorse. Professor Kennedy said he

was not pleading for more publicity or propaganda for town planning but for a better realisation of the commitment by central and local government and the public to the purposes or objectives of planning. In the New Zealand democracy members of local councils were elected to represent public interest. Their planning decisions were not. or should not, be based on' sectional or individual interests, but they sometimes could be. Professor Kennedy said the test of any scheme was whether or not the proposals were demonstrably in the public interest. If they were, then public interest should prevail, in spite of the consequences for individuals or groups. The difficulty here was whether the public clearly recognised what planning was in its own interest. Action Called For

There were areas in New Zealand towns that seemed clear-cut cases for more positive civic action. Town planning as ex’ercised at the moment in these areas seemed unlikely to substantially change a sorry state of affairs. Professor Kennedy said, he was apt to judge municipal efficiency by the number and extent of these areas in a town—not by the rateable value of the town or the rates levied.

The test was whether or not conditions in the town were conducive to good everyday living and working.