THE TOWN PLANNING ACT

Evening Star, Issue 21054, 17 March 1932, Page 3

THE TOWN PLANNING ACT

AN OFFICIAL DEFENCE Sir, —/our leader of March 8 contains a number of statements and questions which call for an authoritative reply. It is true that experience lias shown the Town Planning Act of 192 G to be defective in certain respects, hut by no stretch of the imagination can it be said to merit the wholesale condemnation implied in your leader. Moreover, two major defects—i.e., section 34, which you quote, and section 28, which made provision for the preparation of combined town-planning schemes by contiguous urban authorities, were amended by the Town Planning Amendment Act of 1929. Far from section 34, as amended by section 5 of the 1929 Act, being inoperative, it has to my certain knowledge been effectively applied in dozens of cases to prevent the erection of buildings which would be out of harmony with their surroundings or likely to contravene the town-planning scheme for the district when completed and approved. It is no longer necessary to speculate upon what would or would not conform to recognised and approved principles of town planning, or would _ be likely to interfere with the amenities of a particular locality. It is sufficient that a local authority should express its intention to zone a particular part of its district for a specified use under its town-planning scheme, and thereafter to refuse applications for buildings or other works which would not be in conformity ivith that use. The dance hall you refer to is a case in point. I do not know when this building was actually erected, but it would have been competent for the City Council at any time from the passing cf the 1929 Act (or of the 1926 Act for that matter) to have refused a permit for the building in question, subject to the right of the applicant to appeal to the Town Planning Board against its decision. So much for the power of a local authority to control building development pending the completion and approval of its statutory town-planning scheme. Now let us consider what can be achieved by the scheme itself in respect to zoning, or the regulation by districts of the character, density and height of buildings, and the air space about them. i

Zoning is a necessary precedent to the formulation of anything like an economic policy in respect_ to streets and the various public utilities and services, the capacity of which must at all times bear a definite relationship to the “ loading ” on the lands they serve. Zoning is the only way in which that “loading” can be regulated and controlled. Section 15 of the_ 1926 Act says: “Every town-planning scheme prepared pursuant to this Act shall, having regard to the present and to the future requirements of the borough, make provision for the matters referred to in the schedule hereto with all such particularity as the Town Planning Board may require ”; and the schedule includes, inter alia—(1) The definition of areas to be used exclusively or principally for specified purposes or classy or purposes. (2) Buildings, with particular reference to their position on allotment, and in relation to any roads, streets, or other buildings; their density, character, height, and harmony in design of facades.

These provisions are qualified by section 29, which reads;— “Every person having any estate or interest in any land taken for the purpose of a town-planning scheme, or in any land, buildings, or other improvements injuriously affected by the operation of such a scheme, or injuriously affected by the operation of section 34 hereof (as now amended by section 5 of the 1929 Act) shall, subject to the provisions of this section, be entitled to claim full _ compensation for all loss thereby sustained by him. “ Compensation shall not be payable under this section in any of the following cases, that is to say:—(a) In respect of the operation of any provision in the town-planning scheme if such provision could have been made and enforced without liability to pay compensation by any local or_ public authority independently of this Act. (b) In respect of any of a scheme regulating the space about buildings or limiting the number of buildings that may be erected in any .area, or prescribing the height or character of buildings.” It- follow's, then, that with the approval of the Town-planning Board it would have been competent for the City Council at any time since the passing of the 1926 Act, to prepare a comprehensive zoning scheme for the city in respect to those matters I have referred to above, without any question of compensation arising. You ask- what good is the Townplanning Act to anyone. I will reply to that indirectly hy _ citing some of the benefits which zoning confers on a community. It provides for orderly, progressive, and co-ordinated development according to a definite policy and plan. In enables streets and public utilities to be planned and designed according to predetermined needs, and with every assurance that they will be .permitted for long periods of time to perform the services approximating the original expectation. It prevents changing land uses, with the consequent creation of blighted districts, depreciation of property values, disturbance of assessments and inequalities in taxation. It enables the cost of improvements to be equitably assessed according to the benefits received. It enables the acquisition or sterilisation of- land in advance of settlement, thereby saving the community enormous sums of money. It determines and stabilises property uses and values, thereby making property more saleable, eliminating speculation, and affording security of tenure and investments. It safeguards and promotes public health and safety by regulating the air space about buildings, by preventing undue congestion- of population and reducing the risk to human life through fire or earthquakes. It safeguards and promotes the amenities of residential districts by preventing the inclusion of incompatible land uses. For your information I may say that the cities of Christchurch, Wellington, and Auckland have not only completed their civic surveys, but are sufficiently well advanced with their zoning proposals to have formulated a definite policy to which all applications for building permits can be related. The fact that the statutory period within which schemes aro to be prepared and submitted for approval has been extended to 1937, has very little significance. Personally, with certain safeguards, I would prefer to see this legal obligation removed altogether. Town-planning is essentially a co-opera-tivo movement; it is an instrument placed in tho hands of a community to enable them to guide and control the development of the environment in which they live, to the end that they may lead a fuller, healthier, and happier life. If, therefore, town-planning does not commend itself to the citizens

as the right and proper thing to do, coercion would be useless. There is one other point to which 1 must refer if space permits—namely, regional planning. No ono will deny that our local body boundaries in many cases are little more than arbitrary lines on a map, and bear very little, if any, relation to the community of social and economic interest which is supposed to form the basis of local selfgovernment in this country. There is not a borough in New Zealand to-day which can bo regarded as a self-con-tained planning unit, and very few which can bo regarded as economic administrative units. No wholly satisfactory or successful town-planning scheme can be prepared, therefore, for any self-governing district which does not take into consideration the reciprocal interests of contiguous districts. Surely this is the principle underlying our system of harbour, _ hospital, > and power board administration. Regional planning was designed to carry this principle to its logical conclusion by disregarding the local body boundaries for the time being to enable the co-ordi-nated planning not only of those utilities and services which do not begin and end within the boundaries of any single local authority, but of the actual and potential major land uses, without a knowledge of which efficiency and economy in local body administration in respect to such utilities and services is impossible. Section 28 of the 1926 Act sought to secure co-ordinated planning by means of combined statutory townplanning schemes for contiguous urban districts, but failed for the following reasons:—■

(1) It contained no powers to require the inclusion of all land within the social and economic planning unit.

(2) The combining local authorities were required to delegate their powers to a statutory committee, which would have had the power to commit them to an unknown liability without their prior consent. (3) There was no means of ascertaining what that liability would be until after the scheme had been completed and approved. (4) The limitation upon the number of members of the committee made it impossible for every local authority to be equitably represented. (5) In the absence of any direction in the Act as to the basis of allocating the cost of preparing and carrying out combined schemes, it was found to be impossible to reach an agreement satisfactory to all the authorities.

It was to overcome these difficulties that the section was amended by the regional planning provisions of 1929, which—

(1) Ensures that all land within the social and economic planning unit shall be brought into a scheme. (2) Enables the local authorities concerned to combine for _ the preparation of a scheme, which, while comprehensive in its nature, would place no obligations (financial or otherwise) on any of the combining authorities other than they were prepared to accept voluntarily (with the exception of the actual cost of preparing the plans, and this was limited to a maximum amount which should not exceed one-twelve thousandth part of the total capital value of the combined districts).

As a matter of fact if the technical work involved in the preparation of a scheme was done by the salaried officers of the combining authorities, the cost to those authorities, over and above their ordinary administrative expenses, would be almost negligible.

(3) The regional planning committees were to have advisory powers only. They could not commit anybody to anything. That means that the question of voting power became a secondary consideration and that all possibility of claims being made for compensation which would have arisen under the 1926 Act were definitely ruled out.

It provided, in other words, for the preparation of comprehensive, and coordinated planning schemes over ivjde areas without interference in any way with the statutory powers and privileges of the combining authorities. The question of what constitutes a regional or self-contained social and economic planning unit depends entirely upon local circumstances. Community of social and economic interest to-day and at all times in history has been determined by transportation facilities. A region, in effect, is an economic drainage area centred upon a large town—usually a port—• which acts as the collecting and distributing centre in respect of the raw materials and manufactured products produced or consumed within the economic radius of transportation. In determining the boundaries of" a region, therefore, regard must bo had not to personal, opinions and prejudices or even to tradition, but solely to economic factors. You refer to the dispute, for instance, as to whether Queenstown should be included in the Southland region centred on Invercargill or in the Otago region centred on Dunedin, If the actual or proposed transportation facilities between Queenstown and Dunedin are such that goods and passengers can be transported between those two points at a lower cost than they can between Queenstown and Invercargill, or if Dunedin is able to offer Queenstown economic advantages in respect to finance and commerce which outweigh advantages in transportation costs to Invercargill, then Queenstown rightly belongs in the Otago region. It follows, too, that any effort to appraise in a scientific way the future social and economic activities of the city and port of Dunedin as the basis of a scheme to control future urban development can only be based on scientifically ascertained data with respect to the actual and potential development of the natural resources and the density and distribution of population within the economic drainage area. It follows, too, I think, that once the boundaries of this region or economic drainage area have been accurately defined a priraa facie case has been made out for the definition of the boundaries of all those activities which have been or ought to be organised on a regional basis, and in this way only can we formulate anything like a sound basis or policy for the reorganisation of our local body affairs. That is taking the broadest aspects of regional planning. Reduced to its simplest elements, however, it' can be made to servo the needs of a limited area or a single function of urban life. It could, for instance, be utilised as a means or securing an efficient and economic scheme of city and suburban water supply or drainage, or for the preparation of a metropolitan zoning scheme. Rightly understood and sympathetically approached, its possibilities for the improvement of our social and economic conditions are unlimited. Those are not fantastic theories or speculative opinions, but are based on tho experience and results achieved in other countries, particularly England and the United States of America.—l am, etc., J. W. Mawson, Director of Town Planning. Wellington, March 11,