TOWN PLANNING.

Evening Star, Issue 21220, 29 September 1932, Page 8

TOWN PLANNING.

Dunedin’s disadvantageous position in regard to the Town Planning Act was again emphasised at the meeting of the City Council last night. Objections were received from ratepayers in the locality to a permit being issued for a petrol service station at the corner of Regent road and George street, on the ground that such a station was not suited to a residential locality. Statements made during the discussion were that, as the corner was situated, the station might be opposed to public safety, and that it was not needed, as there were several others in the’locality. The council decided that, in the absence of any provision for a town planning scheme, it had no option except to grant the permit. Without judgment on the case in question, we believe that this lack of powers on the council’s part is a weakness that should be remedied. It should not be open to anyone, so long as he complies with hygienic requirements, to erect buildings of any kind anywhere that he pleases, even on his own property, without consideration for either the feelings of neighbours or the probable future development of the city in the locality where they are erected. From a perusal of the law it would appear that the council’s powers go further, even in present circumstances, than they were assumed last night to do. Clause 5 of the Act of 1929 sets forth that “ any local authority that . , . is under an obligation to prepare a town planning scheme . . . may at any time before the scheme has been approved . . . refuse its consent to the erection of any building ” if it appears that it would be “in contravention of town planning principles.” For general purposes of the Act, however, the Director of Town Planning, Mr Mawson, has himself explained a first requirement to be “that a local authority should express its intention to zone a particular part of its district for a specified use,” and this the Dunedin City Council has not yet done. It is obvious that if an appeal, involving compensation, were made against any decision of the council, that body would be in a much stronger position to contest it when its zoning scheme could bo produced. Preparation of such a scheme, we are glad to think, may have been brought somewhat nearer by the recent visit of Mr Mawson, which has set certain wheels in motion. It is not long since the Associated Chambers of Commerce, in their zeal for required economy, were urging the abolition of the Town Planning Office and the cessation of all regional planning and town planning activities. A circular which we have just received from the council of the Town Planning Institute of New Zealand takes issue with that demand as one totally inconsistent with economy. It quotes the manager of the Civic Development Department, Chamber of Commerce of the United States, to the following effect: —“City planning has become a business proposition. Business men have learned that city planning is an essential to business, not a luxury; that it has practical value in promoting efficiency of operation and reducing waste in expenditure; that it is just as much a hard-headed proposition ns planning an industrial plant or a department store, and for analogous reasons.” It quotes also from the speech of the Minister of Health in the House of Commons on the third reading of the English Town and Country Planning Act passed last June: “It is because I am‘sure that the powers of this Bill, wisely exercised and properly controlled, will have the effect of increasing the national wealth that I believe this to bo a measure appropriate to the present time. The experience of all who are practically concerned in this sort of administration teaches that the small percentage of the total cost of development that we should pay, and that we will pay in the form of charges for planning ahead will bo the greatest possible assurance of economy and the best development of our national assets in the future.” When those facts are fully realised by the community there will be less delay in the production of town planning schemes.