SHOPPING MALL

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31206, 2 November 1966, Page 12

SHOPPING MALL

Conditional Approval

The Regional Planning Authority would be quite happy about a shopping mall on Memorial avenue if the existing shopping centre at the Clyde-Fendalton roads junction was removed. The authority has taken this stand on an application for a specified departure from the Waimairi County district scheme to permit the use of land at 19-23 Memorial avenue as a mall-type shopping centre with a landscaped car park. The council has already decided that shops around the Fendalton-Clyde roads junction must go. The authority dislikes the presence of the shops from a traffic point of view. The authority was told yesterday that the proposed change of zoning relating to the existing commercial zone at the junction to permit road improvements had not yet been determined.

As objections should have been lodged by September 15, the director of planning (Mr C. B. Millar) had advised the council that until the fate of the existing shops was determined consideration of a specified departure was premature.

If approval were given in the interim for the proposed shopping mall, and the proposed change of zoning at the junction was rejected, the result could be the creation of two such zones in close proximity. The authority decided to make representations at any hearing which would deal with the proposed shopping mall.