TOWN PLANNING POLICY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21167, 27 April 1932, Page 13

TOWN PLANNING POLICY.

DIRECTOR DISAPPOINTED. EXPERIENCE IN DOMINION. "SADLY DISILLUSIONED MAN." [BY TELEGRAPH. —PRESS ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON, Tuesday. "I came to New Zealand full of high hopes—l am afraid I 6hall leave here a sadly-disillusioned man," said the director of town planning, Mr. J. W. Mawson, in an address this evening under the auspices of the Wellington Town Planning Institute. "I am called the director of town planning," he added. "It is a misnomer. For three and a-half years I have had to stand by and watch the most serious mistakes being made without any power to lift a finger to stop them. Occasionally, very occasionally, my advice is sought on some problem of urban development, and I give it. More often than not that advice is ignored if it does not happen to be in line with the preconceived ideas of the authority which sought it. "Town planning is not, as some people apparently suppose, a minor function of local government, to be taken up or disregarded at will by a town council for the time being," said Mr. Mawson. " On the contrary ifc is the very essence of good government. Any council which is not town-planning, that is, continuously thinking out, planning, directing, regulating and controlling the physical development of the area over which it exercises jurisdiction, to the end that a multitude of interests and functions may be co-ordinated and harmonised, is not governing at all. 1 say categorically that local government without a comprehensive plan and foresighted policy is a cruel and expensive farce.

" You would imagine that the most elementary requirement of any local body charged with the responsibility of designing, constructing and maintaining the various public utilities and services which form the basis of urban life, would be a knowledge of physical conditions obtaining in the area over which it exercises jurisdiction. That is to say a survey showing the topography of the area, the street system, building lands with an indication of the number and character of buildings erected, the density and distribution of the population and the various public utilities and services, such as water supply and drainage. One of the first things I did when I reached New Zealand was to prepare a notation and explanatory memorandum for the information of local authorities in the preparation of these surveys and pointing out their necessity and value.

" Well, I doubt very much if, in spite of all my efforts, more than twelve such surveys have been completed. That means that even since I have been in New Zealand many millions of money have been expended in building out towns without a proper knowledge of the foundations on which we have heen building and without any plans of completed structures."