Preservation Of City Plantation Sought

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31762, 20 August 1968, Page 14

Preservation Of City Plantation Sought

The showing of the Bottle Lake plantation in the regional planning scheme as required for urban use was opposed by the Christchurch City Council last evening.

There was little likelihood of the council releasing the plantation area within the 20year planning period covered by the first review of the rural area of the regional scheme, or even later, the parks and recreation committee said, so the Regional Planning Authority’s proposal was most unrealistic.

In 1912, the council adopted an afforestation scheme to control the inland drift of sand, and used a waste property with numerous swamps, the city development committee said. Pinus radiata was found to be the most suitable tree species in the conditions and had been continuously planted. The council could appeal to the Town and Country Planning Appeal Board or inform the regional authority that it refused approval of the review.

The council agreed to advise the authority that it proposed to continue to maintain, develop and use for general afforestation an area in the Waimairi county close to the seashore.

Such a plantation area, with its sawmilling plant and ancillary buildings, was a public work established at the cost of much capital out-

lay and was a large, productive, protective and rewarding asset, the council said. Its use and development were in the community and public interest and would be disrupted by the proposed urban area of the authority’s scheme. In other areas where there was conflict between council policy and the planning authority’s proposals, the council agreed to approve the scheme provided it was amended to meet certain council requirements, including provision for controlled tips as predominant uses in the rural zone and that the proposed council development of Taylor’s Mistake be provided as a special, recreation zone. The council was not satisfied with the authority’s code of ordinances, which the city development committee said imposed inflexibility in the implementation of district schemes and exceeded the regional authority’s jurisdiction of being a guide on mat ters of regional significance. The ordinances required modification to relieve the rigidity they imposed, while protecting such reasonable and acceptable town-planning principles as they strove to preserve and apply, the com-