APPEALING AGAINST ROAD PLAN

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31237, 8 December 1966, Page 22

APPEALING AGAINST ROAD PLAN

The Town and Country Planning Appeal Board made a special late afternoon trip to Fendalton yesterday to observe peak traffic between Harper avenue and the Fendalton road railway crossing. The board wanted to observe traffic to assist in determining its findings on the plan to widen Fendalton road.

Three residents with properties fronting Fendalton road are appealing to the board to stop the Waimairi County Council’s plan to widen the road from 66ft to 92ft and to 99ft at intersections. They are Gordon Blair Mc-

Credie, 55 Fendalton road, Herbert Edward Radley and Doris Isabel Radley, 2 Fendalton road, and Noreen McCormack, 1 Wood lane. They claim that the council’s plan to include an Bft median strip is wasteful, unnecessary and excessive. Each gave evidence yesterday showing how the council’s plan would affect their own properties. Mr McCredie said his front section would be detrimentally affected by being reduced to such a size that any house built on it would be too near to traffic on Fendalton road. He said a road 99ft wide at intersections was unnecessary because nearly all traffic would be to and from the airport. The road was not a main arterial road. Mr McCredie considered that a median strip was unnecessary and footpaths 10ft wide also unnecessary for the amount of pedestrian traffic in the area. «

Mr Radley said that if the council implemented its plan, his property would have 13ft lopped off the front on Fendalton road with the result that access to his garage would be very difficult, if not impossible.

Loss of Lawns “Our dwelling will lose a great proportion of its external attractiveness because of the loss of lawns, gardens and shrubs and the balance of the land will not lend itself to the same suitable attractive landscaping,” he said.

Mr Radley held that road noise would be increased and the privacy of his home reduced.

“When we purchased our modern home after the road was widened to 66ft and the new bridge over the Avon built we had every reason to believe that this was the final road width,” he said. “The present road is wide enough to support a two-lane highway if parking at the side of the road is prohibited.

“A median strip may be necessary and this could be two feet wide and painted on the surface of the road.”

Mr Radley said that if the board held that the present width of Fendalton road where it fronted his property was not sufficient for the flow of traffic and that it must be increased then it should be increased to 84ft and not the proposed 92ft Parking Lane

This could be achieved by either reducing the width of the median strip from Bft to 2ft and reducing the width of the footpaths from 10ft to 9ft or reducing the footpaths to 6ft and leaving the median strip Bft Essential services could be located and placed under the parking lane. Mr Radley said Fendalton was one of the most beautiful parts of the city and Fendalton road was known as the “garden entry.” The loss of gardens, shrubs and trees would destroy this. In its reply to Mr Radley’s

claims, the Waimairi County Council said that Fendalton road would be carrying 20,000 vehicles a day by 1986. The road was shown as an arterial route in the Christchurch Master Transportation Plan serving the north-west suburbs of the city and the international airport. This volume would need a four-lane road. Bft Median A median of Bft was the minimum necessity for such a road in the interest of safety. A footpath 10ft wide would be necessary to carry essential services and pedestrian traffic. Mrs McCormack said her property of two roods 39.3 perches had been subdivided into three lots in 1960. If the road were widened, one of the sections would be so reduced in size that it could not be used as a building site.

She said traffic noise on Fendalton road would be increased and the privacy of her home and grounds reduced. She said the present width of 66ft was enough for a twoway highway and the proposed median of Bft was wasteful, unnecessary and excessive. Two feet would be enough, she said. Malcolm Douglass, regional planning engineer to the Christchurch Regional Planning Authority, said that by 1980 Fendalton road would be the urban expressway with the heaviest traffic in the region. It would be carding the same volume now using Moorhouse avenue and double that nbw flowing down Blenheim road. “It would seem that the Waimairi County Council has considered all of the immediate factors of traffic, costs, construction, geometry, services and associated works together with the broader issues of adjacent land uses, stand-

ards of amenity, neighbourhood and district planning and that no other alternative exists having the merits of the present proposal,” he said. The hearing will resume at 10 a.m. today.