Writ Against Planning Appeal Board Sought

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31596, 6 February 1968, Page 10

Writ Against Planning Appeal Board Sought

A writ to prohibit the Town and Country Planning Appeal Board from considering an application to erect a shopping mall on land at 19 to 23 Memorial Avenue—as a specific departure from a residential A zoning—was sought by three plaintiffs yesterday in the Supreme Court.

They claimed that since the applicant for the shopping mall, Walter James Turner, a grocer, and others constituting the W. J. Turner Family Trust, did not own all the land—in that one . plaintiff held an easement over it—the appeal board was without power to hear the application, and if it did so would act in excess of jurisdiction. Mr Justice Macarthur, after hearing day-long legal argument, reserved decision.

The plaintiffs seeking the writ of prohibition are Lester Frederick Allison, a clerk in holy orders (Mr B. McClelland), John Charles Marshall, a company manager, and Ernest Lascelles Bonisc, a manufacturer (Mr J. G Leggat). Family Trust

They proceeded against the Town and Country Planning Appeal Board (Mr C. M. Roper) as first defendant, and

the W. J. Turner Family Trust (Mr G. S. Brockett), as second defendant.

The members of the lattei trust are Walter James Turner, Mary Liddell Turner, Jeannie Margaret Best, William Mayne Turner, and James Tennent Turner.

On their behalf, Mr Brockett, together with Mr Roper, presented legal argument that the Town and Country Planning Appeal Board did have jurisdiction to hear their application for a specific departure from the Waimairi County Council’s district scheme plan.

The plaintiffs based theii case on a right-of-way possessed across the applicant’s land by Mr Allison.