THE CIVIC CENTRE

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 135, 10 June 1933, Page 14

THE CIVIC CENTRE

" NOT REALLY ADOPTED "

BEARING ON FIRE SITE

NEED FOR PERSPECTIVE

"Before the City Council or tbe Fire Board plunges further into this apparently never-ending squabble over the site for the new fire station —just now as to whether it should go to Clyde Quay or to the Corporation yard site— surely they should pauso a while and get back to a sound (perspective. I think that Councillor Duncan's proposal that the whole question of the civic centre should be reviewed is most sensible," said Mr. H. D. Bennett, talking with a "Post" reported today. "The question whether the station should be moved at all rests upon the basic idea that Wellington is to have a civic centre about the Town Hall. That civic centre idea, I believe, is deader today than it has ever been. The XDity Council never really agreed to the plan as an expression of policy, but merely approved of the proposal in a general way. As a matter of fact approval was refused." Mr. Bennett was a member of the City Council at the time the civic centre plan was considered, and he maintains that the council declined to commit itself to anything more than "general approval," nor had any subsequent council passed a resolution confirming even that degree of approval. THE COMMISSION AND AFTER. "However, from that rather nebulous foundation the council found itself carried forward, and the importance of the question became impaled upon the public mind by the holding of an expensive ' Commission of inquiry,'' continued Mr. Bennett.' It is necessary, if correct perspective is to be had, to recall the main points. The council contended, and the Commission, after weighing the evidence put before it, decided, that the Fire Board should vacate the present site and go elsewhere, in order that the council could demolish all buildings on the triangle of land opposite the Town Hall and build there a new central library with a wide-open space about it." Great stress was laid upon the fact, said Mr. Bennett, that the existing accommodation in the Town Hall and in the engineers' and other departments was inadequate and that additional room must be provided. Unquestionably that was still true. To provide such additional accommodation it was proposed to build two or more storeys on: the Town Hall, to demolish • the Education Board building (purchased by the council) and the present library building, and to build there modern offices —in conformity with the out-of-date architecture of the Town Hall. . "It is not necessary to go beyond these two points to show the folly of the present position," continued Mr. Bennett. "To deal with the first: Will the,council today confirm the civic centre scheme, never adopted as . a policy but given only general approval? I think not, • EXTRA HEIGHT ON TOWN HALL. "The first poiut and the second tie, together very closely. It was insisted) that tho Town Hall could be made two or three storeys higher with complete safety. That was in 1929. In 1931 tl>> Hawke's Bay smash showed what happened to buildings erected more or less contemporaneously with the Wellington Town Hall. It is not a steel-framed building: there is practically no steel in its framing, except perhaps in the tower, which has been condemned. Any proposal for the building of additional storeys on the Town Hall would today be just laughed at. . • "If it should be that the council no longer approves of a civic centre plan requiring the demolition of buildings wholesale —but no one can know. that until the council knows itself —then why the- removal of the fire- station from, what is admittedly the most suitable, site in Wellington' and the unnecessary expenditure of £60,000 or £70,000 for a site and building less suitable?" asked Mr. Bennett. "From a hazy beginning of general approval the council has just drifted on and on, until; now. it is fighting, apparently stubbornly, over an issue that: ceased to be two or three years ago. The whole thing has been removed from its context." . VERY MUCH LOWER COST. Mr., Bennett said that he strongly supported Councillor Duncan's view that the station should remain where it is, at any rate for the next ten years. It was true that tho present building required alteration, and extension to bring it up to date, strengthen it sufficiently, and to provide better quarters for. the men, but, '. he maintained, it would be far better to incur an estimate.d expenditure of £3000 ,or £4000 to carry out that necessary work'than to call upon the citizens, directly through the rates and indirectly through the insurance companies, to find £60,000 or £70,000 for a new station at Clyde Quay or the Corporation yard. He considered that the payment of £1000 per year rental to the City Council by the Fire Board would be reasonable for the present station, and certainly £1000 per y ( ear would be very much better business for the city than a building, suitable for one purpose only, standing empty for no one knew how many years. "But the first thing .to do," concluded Mr. Bennett, "is for the council to do what past councils have carefully refrained from doing: to decide whether it does want such a civic centre scheme as was 'generally approved' when .the outlook was very different. Until, that point is cleared up the whole discussion is, in my opinion, just a waste of time."