ORAKEI BOAT HARBOUR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23083, 7 July 1938, Page 17

ORAKEI BOAT HARBOUR

Sir, —Though it. is pleasing to learn that a small section of the communitv is turning its thoughts to the question of the preservation of our harbour beaches, might I suggest that before they take any further action they get in touch with those organisations behind the Orakei proposal and find out a little about what is actually intended. Organised yachtsmen are actually the last people from whom the beaches require any protection. For years they have been practically the only ones to protect the beaches. Judge's Bay, for example, is a beach under the supervision of a yacht club and each November a working bee of over two dozen members spends some hours going over the sands with hay rakes, removing all glass and other rubbish. I have yet to learn of any residents' association giving their beach this regular spring cleaning. Twenty-five years ago yachtsmen, among them Sir Ernest Davis and Mr. C. A. Whitney,'were fighting for the protection of this particular beach from the proposed Orakei sewage outfall and even now they have not abandoned their efforts. When the Orakei residents realise that it was a yacht club that caused the City Council to prohibit advertising hoardings on the waterfront road, they will perhaps admit that yachtsmen are not one whit behind themselves in a desire to improve and safeguard the amenities of the Auckland waterfront. Actually Okahu Beach will not be affected in any way except that it will be improved bv the removal of the boats at present stored there for the winter. The beach will be set aside exclusively for bathers and boating interests will really be shut off from the beach itself. Yachting interests have asked the controlling authorities to pass a number of special by-law's rigidly controlling the boat harbour area. The scheme was first made public in 3935, The time since then has been spent in collecting data of famous boat harbours overseas, in consulting town planning experts and landscape gardeners, both here and in Europe and America. The best ideas of all the information obtainable is now being collected by a leading firm of Auckland architects and the result will give Auckland an aquatic centre rivalling even those of Chicago and Miami, which cost millions of dollars. Orakei residents are in fact to be given a protection for their beach that neither it nor any other beach has enjoyed in the past and will in addition be asked to accept the use of a park unequalled anywhere else in Aurckland, together with boating facilities unparalleled elsewhere in the world all at no cost to themselves. Even waiting rooms for buses, equipped with slot telephones and toilet conveniences have not been overlooked. The delay, if it can be called that, in giving full details of the completed proposals is caused solely by a desire to make it a work worthy of the occasion —Auckland's Centenary. T. McKnight, Commodore R.A.Y.C.