Change in hills land use urged

Press, 4 October 1977, Page 6

Change in hills land use urged

Present arguments over a Heathcote County subdivision above Chorley Place showed how essential Labour policy was “to avoid insane land development on the Port Hills,” the Labour mayoral candidate, Mr H. A. Clark, said yesterday. The Values mayoral candidate, Mr P. J. Heal, said that it was necessary to withhold all further development permission for the hills until the drainage system could be improved to cope with (present requirements. “Residents of Chorley Place and Bowenvale Avenue are well aware of the threat to their homes from development higher up the slopes and valleys,” said Mr Clark. “They must be protected from the excesses of property speculators and little-minded authorities hell;bent on destroying our i environment.”

Legislation was needed to prevent land developers, property speculators, and others involved in marginal land develoment from standing for significant positions on local authorities, such as the Christchurch Drainage Board, said Mr Clark. If the present situation was an example of close liaison between Citizens’ Association-dominated ■boards, then it was time that members of that party withdrew from contesting local elections. Mr Heal said he was not convinced that there was no connection between the headlong peripheral development of Christchurch in the last 20 s'ears and the particular;

interests of the business and professional sector, which had had an almost unbroken reign over the city’s councils and boards in that time. It was wrong of the Drainage Board to continue the “foolhardy procedure” of allowing accumulated stormwater to flow into natural drainage features of the hillside suburbs. “In every recent case of hill slippage, it has been crystal clear that this stupid policy has been the cause of under-runner development, of loess saturation far beyond natural limits, and of the consequent loss of ground stability” during high rainfall periods now experienced regularly. “It is a waste of time and emotion to repeatedly blame either God, or Godley — or both — When looking for excuses for these recurring drainage problems,” said Mr Heal. Tennis.—The unseeded American, Butch Waits, came from behind to upset the top-seeded Brian Gottfried, of the United States, 4-8, 6-3, 7-5. in the final of the trans-America open tennis tournament