Council flat ban on dogs ‘should stay’

Press, 2 August 1983, Page 9

Council flat ban on dogs ‘should stay’

The Christchurch City Council’s policy of prohibiting dogs in pensioner and public rental flats should remain in force, the public utilities committee said yesterday. The number of dogowners applying for pensioner flats was less than 1 per cent of all applicants, said a staff report. Cr C. E. Manning had suggested that one or two blocks of flats might be designated to permit dogs as pets.

Pensioners had time to exercise their dogs and pet therapy was becoming recognised as a way to combat some kinds of disease.

Mr W. V. Morgan, the housing and property director, said that main objections to the proposal were the possible noise and nuisance that could be caused by dogs in pensioner flats. The feeding of birds by some tenants had already drawn complaints, and cate caused many problems around the flats.

Close living conditions in bedsitter unite and onebedroom flats were not good for the keeping of dogs, said Mr Morgan. A suggestion that only toy breeds might be allowed in some flats would be unfair to the owners of larger breeds. “This sort of communal living is not the right place for dogs,” said Cr A. G. James. New flats

A complex of about 20 new pensioner flats, possibly four of them to be sold, will be built in Richmond.

Committee members approved the project in prin-

ciple. The site has limited frontage to both Avalon Street and Perth Street. Three firms that have done reliable pensioner housing work for the council will be asked to submit designs and building proposals. Sumner Seven new pensioner flats at the corner of Wiggins Street and Hardwicke Street in Sumner should be named G. F. Allen Courts to make the service of a former Sumner School headmaster, the committee said. The unite are built on land that used to be part of the school grounds. The late Mr Allen was the school’s longest-serving headmaster. He held the post from 1908 to 1931. Expressway land Six houses and 17 vacant sections along Aidwins Road, bought by the council for expressway widening, will now be sold. None of the former house owners wanted to buy their properties back and the houses will be sold by auction. The vacant sections will be offered for sale by tender at first, then placed on the market if there is little interest shown in them.

A move to ask the parks and recreation department if it was interested in any of the properties for landscaped reserve space was lost. Cr Geoff Stone said a better approach would be to get the properties sold and wait for landscaping that would be associated with the future houses.