THE WINGATUI DEVELOPMENT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26472, 28 May 1947, Page 4

THE WINGATUI DEVELOPMENT

In approving the scheme for housing development at Wingatui, the City Council did not make its decision on .a party vofe. This was, of course, only proper in a matter which is of vital importance to the future of Dunedin, but in the past weighty decisions have on occasion been influenced by such' irrelevant considerations. Cr Walls is to be congratulated on the forthright stand he has adopted and on his expressed belief in the industrial future of Otago. His stand is all the more commendable in that he did not temporise. It should be noted that although Cr McMillan’s notice of motion was “ That the council views with serious concern the proposal that the Housing De-, partment should carry out its major future housing scheme for Dunedin at Wingatui, . . Crs Hudson and Connolly, who voted for it, both expressed a favourable opinion of the future possibilities of Wingatui, and Cr McMillan himself said he did not want to suggest “that the time might not ultimately come when Wingatui will be a good place for building houses.” As it is obvious that it will be some years before building is actually commenced at Wingatui and that in the interim much of the suitable land within the perimeter of the hills around Dunedin will have been occupied, the objections made are divested of most of their appearance of validity, and the original motion itself is demonstrated to be a rather futile squib which was unworthy of the seriousness of the issues involved.

Commenting on the Wingatui scheme at the meeting of the Regional Planning Council, Mr R. B. Hammond, assistant director of the Government Housing Department, said: “It is necessary to plan big and build big.” Other members were emphatic that there should be no piecemeal or ribbon development. This is a most important aspect of the matter. It is essential that the scheme should be continuously viewed as a whole and that plans for all facilities should be made accordingly from the very outset. In the statements made by Cr Ireland and others it appears that this is the present intention: it should not be departed from when planning has reached the stage when initial installation costs might seem dangerously large. In the history of the development of Dunedin it is not hard to read the lesson that lack of foresight and confidence in the future must be heavily paid for by succeeding generations. Water and drainage, power supply, road and rail facilities must all be planned so that they can be extended to meet the future maximum demands without the need for costly duplications. The development which is planned is on the lines of schemes now being undertaken in the north, but here there

are better prospects of success because of the industrial potentialities which exist and which are being increasingly appreciated owing to the limitations of electric development in the North Island. The south has long suffered from comparative neglect, but there are indications that the future must bring an adjustment in the balance. The Wingatui scheme is a constructive and far-sighted proposal which will hasten that adjustment.