Mayor Defends New Civic Centre Plans

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32119, 15 October 1969, Page 16

Mayor Defends New Civic Centre Plans

The proposed change in the siting of the civic administration building on the Town Hall site would accelerate development by at least five years and save the ratepayers approximately $500,000, the Mayor of Christchurch (Mr A. R. Guthrey) said last evening.

Mr Guthrey was commenting on a leading article in “The Press” yesterday, which suggested that the proposed change might result in a delay to the full development of the area.

The plan of Professor Gordon Stephenson, the consultant engaged to settle a controversy on the Town Hall site, provided for the Town Hall, a library and an administration building only, Mr Guthrey said. Although Professor Stephenson was asked to include the library, he was not asked for his opinion on whether the area was the best place for a library.

It was now accepted that the library must be nearer to the retail centre of the city, Mr Guthrey said. The full civic centre would only include the Town Hall blocks and the administration building. The City Engineer (Mr P. G. Scoular) was studying the one-way street system and the possible advantages of closing Victoria Street, as suggested by Professor Stephenson, and this could still be done if it was considered necessary. Mr Guthrey said that the whole scheme had been referred to the judges of the Town Hail design competition for their opinion. The model of the area was being rebuilt to show the positions of the buildings.

Perspective drawings showed that the placing of the administration building on the proposed site would not in any way detract from the vista of the Town Hall from Armagh and Colombo Streets, Mr Guthrey said. Although the existing trees were an attractive feature of Victoria Square, unfortunately they would block a clear view of the Town Hall. If a future City Council considered that the whole

area bounded by Kilmore Street from Colombo Street to Durham Street should be landscaped and a new art gallery built there was nothing to stop this, provided the money could be found. “The proposed administration block will not be built within a few yards of the riverbank and it will not be as close to the Town Hall

building as on the original plan,” he said. “It will not encroach on riverside lands, but will be built mainly on the existing roadway.” Mr Guthrey said that the car park planned for below the paved square would be abandoned in favour of a bet-ter-sited, larger and cheaper site on the north side of Kilmore Street. “The leading article suggests that the whole project might be halted once the administration block is completed,” he said. “The position is that the administration block will complete the whole project.”