NORTH TAIERI PROJECT WILL DE PLANNED, BUT WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY?

Evening Star, Issue 26117, 3 June 1947, Page 6

NORTH TAIERI PROJECT WILL DE PLANNED, BUT WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY?

While the various parties concerned in the development of a large industrial and housing project on the North Taieri Plains are agreed on the necessity for adequate planning in the lay-out of the new area, the question of whose responsibility it will be has not jet been decided. The appointment of .a town planner, possibly. with an assistant, who -will- work under the direction of an appropriate authority seems to be favoured as the best means of ensuring that there • will be 'no haphazard growth.' If a’ northern lead is adopted, the town planner will be directly employed by the -local bodies in the area', but bo far ho official indication has been ' given- in Dunedin that such a position is envisaged. LOCAL BODIES’ CONCERN. The suggestion being canvassed in some quarters is that the , Dunedin City Council and the - other interested local bodies, such as the Taieri County Council and the Green Island Borough Council, should meet to appoint a planning staff. The findings of such a.-staff would, it is thought, then be referred to the Otago Regional Planning Council. This body, composed of local body delegates and representatives of prominent organisations interested in the development of Otago, already receives confidential reports from Government departments of planning and development projects, so that it could sit as umpire to decide details’ of any scheme. In other quarters Jt has'been suggested that the responsibility lies in ,tha first place with the. Regional Planning Council. No official information cOuld be obtained by the 1 Star ’ this morning' WORK OF PLANNERS. The work of the planning staff would probably be limited to scheming in. a general way the lay-out of the North Taieri Plains, if the 12 square miles available there are selected for-housing and industrial, development. It would be necessary to determine the direction of the prevailing winds to ensure that smoke from industrial operations was not blown on to residential areas; also to see that arterial roads were planned to the best advantage, and that tail and other, transport facilities could, be economically extended to the factory districts. ... It is expected that the complete planning of the settlement proposed by, the Department' of Housing Construction would, if the houses were built in one group, be undertaken as usual by the department. . A.