Concern At Expressway Plan

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31542, 2 December 1967, Page 14

Concern At Expressway Plan

An expressway down Opawa Road would turn “a respected and historically attractive housing area into a ribbon of properties desecrated and devalued by heavy traffic noise and fumes,” the president of the Hillsborough Res idents’ Improvement Society (Mr P. J. Heal) said on Thursday night. Addressing a public meeting of 120 residents of the Opawa area, Mr Heal said the proposed expressway would deny the people their “present inheritance of trees and gardens and a secure domes-

tic atmosphere.” He said the society had called the meeting to see if there was any way of finding an alternative route for what he admitted was a very necessary expressway. He said he wanted the Christchurch City Council to take a human approach to the reading needs of the southern side of the city. H's society had suggested that the City Council consider building the expressway

above the existing LytteltonChristchurch railway line. This would save about $1.4 million in housing purchases. “We have put this proposal to various local bodies and will go right to the Appeal Court,” he said. “An elevated road must be more costly; estimates have put it at $3.5 million rising to $4.5 million when all the incidental work is included.

“Our proposal avoids private property almost completely and takes only a small amount of land from the industrial interests along the route. We believe that in the planning of traffic schemes the first regard should be for the preservation and security of amenities and people,” he said.

One resident told the meeting that he thought it would be unnecessary to build an elevated road over the railway line. In 10 to 15 years, he said, there would be no railway line to Lyttelton. As a worker at Lyttelton he had observed the gradual change from the use of rail to road transport of goods coming in through the port.

During the last few days 6000 tons of sulphur had landed and half of it had been moved by road. ‘The New Zealand Rail-

ways Departinent is not interested in Lyttelton any more,” he said. “If it is going to keep on closing uneconomic lines it must close the Lyttelton line.” Another resident said that his property had been devalued since the announcement that an expressway would be built along Opawa Road.

Another resident asked why it was necessary to build an expressway down Opawa Road. Most of the traffic now using the road was generated in the area. If a four-lane expressway was built to the two-lane Lyttelton tunnel there would be chaos. Mr Heal said it was useless to take issue with the City Council before any appeal authority. Once a decision such as that to build the expressway had been made its completion was a foregone conclusion.

Another speaker said the Regional Planning Authority had shown gross ignorance of planning principles if informing the people likely to be affected was an accepted principle. He said the Authority could make any decision it liked and was not answerable nor responsible to anyone in paying for the damage. A woman resident urged the meeting to show that

everyone meant business. She called for a mass attendance at a meeting of the City Council. The secretary of the society (Mr R. T. Thompson) said the council as a whole rarely received deputations but a committee of 12 with two speakers could meet the city development committee to give its views. Mr Thompson said residents should not have to live under the threat of eviction for many years without being able to sell to the council and go elsewhere. ‘The position is that if I want to move I have to prove hardship. If it is good enough for the City Council to say it proposes to take over my house it is perfectly reasonable for me to say: ‘All right, you must buy me out here and now’.” Mr G. C. Anderson moved that, the residents*of Opawa and Waltham join those of Hillsborough in an approach to the City Council about the expressway.

The motion was carried with one dissenting voice. Mr Thompson moved that the Government be asked to amend legislation so that intention by any public authority to take over private property be in itself proof of hardship. The motion was carried unanimously.