SECTIONAL TOWN PLANNING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19729, 31 August 1927, Page 10

SECTIONAL TOWN PLANNING.

By decision of the local authorities which met last evening, a combined town-planning scheme for the Auckland urban area is not feasible. It has been discovered that a committee set up under the Act to devise a scheme for the territory belonging to the local bodies represented on it would over-ride the authority of all of them in regional planning. This being unacceptable, they have decided instead to go their own separate ways, cooperation whero necessary being secured by discussion between the bodies immediately affected. Townplanning needs and difficulties cannot be discussed solely in terms of Auckland, but the position revealed must apply in a greater or less degree to other centres. Therefore the particular case of Auckland affords material for general deductions. First, the attitude of the local authorities is easily understood. They cannot be expected cheerfully to create an organisation which by their own making will have authority over them. Yet the substitution of sectional negotiation defeats the whole purpose and meaning of town planning. Each body will draw up its own scheme. Where two impinge, there will be negotiation to adjust differences. The result to be expected is that in the Auckland urban area there will be a series of plans, fitted to one another at the edges, yet probably quite irreconcilable in substance and texture. It may easily be like building up one of those "jig-saw puzzles so that the pieces fit into one another, but the design is all confusion. This is not the proper way to solve the puzzle; neither is it the proper way to realise the true ideal of townplanning. It is evident that the legislation designed to produce harmonious results does not meet the conditions existing in the Dominion. The only remedy is to amend the legislation so that the true objective of town planning may be_ reached. Auckland's experience of its effects has already proved the need.