Footpath Widening In Colombo Street

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32324, 16 June 1970, Page 15

Footpath Widening In Colombo Street

A policy was adopted by the City Council last evening to ensure that the ultimate widening of the Colombo Street footpath was not prejudiced by alterations to buildings. The council had an obligation under the Municipal Corporations Act to ensure that buildings, especially where there was a reasonable amount of pedestrian activity, were not liable to collapse in a moderate earthquake, the town planning committee said. This meant that several buildings would need to be strengthened during the next few years. To require strengthening to be carried out clear of the building line would be quite unreasonable in many cases. Any structural alterations would probably add at least 20 years to the effective life of a building. The council agreed that where a building was required to be strengthened, the ground-floor frontage (windows) should be set back to the required building line —4oft from the middle of Colombo St'ret, between Moorhouse Avenue and Oxford Terrace—and only required columns built between the building line. The area between the boundary line and the building line would be considered a floor built and maintained by the owner. Where minor alterations involved new windows on the ground floor frontages these

should be set back to the building line.