CITY BEAUTIFYING

Hutt News, Volume 20, Issue 12, 13 March 1946, Page 10

CITY BEAUTIFYING

IjOWEIt MUTT ACTIVITIES

PAPER READ AT CONFERENCE

Tho recent conference or reserves

officers held at Timaru was a great success, representatives being present from all over New Zealand. Mr. E. Hutt, superintendent of parks and reserves at Lower Hutt, in a paper read before the conference said:

Principally because of the shorter working hours and the growing amount of leisure time, coupled with more intensive working and living conditions, the provision of recreation facilities is becoming more important, and opportunities for wholesome recreation have become essential in every community. The City of Lower Hutt is somewhat unique in that it has, in the space of a few short years, grown from a small borough with a population of a few thousand to a city of 32,000 and this will increase to 55,000 during the next five years. Fortunately its City Fathers foresaw this rapid development, and, rather than develop in the hit-or-miss fashion, they appointed a Town Planning Officer to plan and guide its. development in accordance with a carefully prepared long-term plan. The main objective in planning the city's .reserves was an adequate well-balanced system composed of all types of areas, distributed in proper relation to the population and with due regard to the configuration of the land. Land with irregular topography and low lying areas subject to flooding, being undesirable for residential or commercial uses, were found to be eminently suitable for parkland and picnic grounds. The provision of children's play areas and sports grounds was studied in respect to their adequacy for serving the estimated future population of each neighbourhood. Children's Play Areas.

These playgrounds, intended for children up to junior high school age, were regarded as an important link in the recreation .facilities of the city. It was decided to make provision for a system of play areas whereby, as far as possible, every home in the city would be within one quarter of a mile of a playground. Accordingly, long before the streets were planned, and after consultation with the Town Planner, the Superintendent of Reserves prepared a plan showing the approximate location of the proposed playareas. This plan, necessarily fairly elastic, was submitted to, and adopted by, the Housing Department, who were the chief subdividers of the land. It is pleasing to note that every one of these playgrounds, with very little variation in their location, are in existence to-day, although as yet undeveloped. Overseas it is common practice to provide children's playgrounds with an area of from three to seven acres, but these are designed to serve neighbourhoods with a density of population up to 300 per acre. In Lower Hutt, where the density of population is less than fifty persons per acre, it has been found that areas of from one to two acres make the most efficient playgrounds and

only in one or two cases does the area of the new playgrounds exceed two acres. Major Sports Grounds: The survey of existing facilities for adult recreation disclosed the position to be, in a quantitive sense, fairly satisfactory, but with poor distribution. Many discussions between the Town Planning Officer and the Superintendent of Reserves, together with numerous visits to possible locations, took place before the Town Planner prepared a plan for a complete system of major sports grounds. This plan, which showed existing sports grounds and provided for three new ones and the enlargement of an existing ground, was based on the Town Planner's full knowledge of the disposition of future population and the Reserves Department's intimate knowledge of the requirements of various codes of sport. As with children's play areas, the location of these sports grounds was planned prior to the street planning, and it is of interest to note that all of them exist to-day, and in fact one of the new grounds and the ground which was enlarged are being developed. Experience has shown that major sports grounds cannot be properly controlled without a resident caretaker, and in all cases a reservation has been made for a caretaker's residence. Small or Neighbourhood Parks. So-called neighbourhood parks, are a most desirable part of a reserves system, and wherever possible areas for this purpose have been provided. These parks- vary in size from four to nine acres, according to circumstances. Generally, in addition to being landscaped they will include such features as -children's play equipment, croquet lawns or tennis courts. An interesting type of reserve which could come under the heading of neighbourhood parks is the 'strip reserve.' The houses will back on to the reserve but there will be no direct access to the! reserve from the houses. Railways. This necessary service may be anything but attractive where the railway runs through a city without appropriate treatment. In Lower Hutt one railway, flanked on both sides by a major thoroughfare, runs almost through the centre of the city over a distance of five miles. The first section, constructed some twenty years ago, was built with the track about six feet above the flanking roads. When the extension 'of this railway was recently contemplated representations were made by the Reserves Department to have the track constructed at a level no higher than the flanking road levels. A plan was evolved which provided for the track at road level with, the adjoining grass berms banked in such a way that the railway runs through a miniature cutting. This will be suitably planted, and the railway almost completely screened.