REFUSAL OF PERMITS FOR IMPROVEMENT OF HOTELS CRITICISED BY PROPRIETORS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27196, 27 September 1949, Page 4

REFUSAL OF PERMITS FOR IMPROVEMENT OF HOTELS CRITICISED BY PROPRIETORS

Hotel proprietors in Dunedin are concerned that their applications for permits to extend their premises to provide better facilities for the accommodation of visitors to the city, and generally to increase their claims for higher grading by the Price Tribunal, have been declined. Three proprietors approached by the Daily Times yesterday said that they had applied some time ago for permits to make alterations and additions' to their premises, but had not been granted authority tv do so.

One said he believed that permission would be granted if such questions were decided in Dunedin, but he was of the opinion that the real fate of the applications was decided in Wellington, with the result that Dunedin suffered by comparison with centres in the North Island.

The hotel proprietors approached expressed concern that the permits were not being made available when there was a great need in Dunedin for an improvement in both the trading and accommodation sides of the hotel business. One man has received a permit for alterations to his bar said that his hotel was about 60 years old, and the Metropolitan Licensing Authority and the Health Department had condemned a part of it. He had waited for a permit for two years before he was allowed to make alterations to satisfy these authorities.

Proprietors said they thought that the building restrictions could be relaxed to some extent to allow necessary work to be done to improve hotels in Dunedin.

A proprietor said that he desired to erect the best hotel that could be provided in Dunedin to cater for the tourist trade, but was not permitted to put his plans into execution. He intended, when he was able to do so, to provide rooms with individual bathroom accommodation, suites, and other improvements of a similar nature.

Other hotel proprietors said that they wanted to build additional storeys on to their premises to provide extra accommodation, as well as to raise the standard of their present facilities. They emphasised that progress in Dunedin in respect to hotel improvements had been almost negligible since the war. Not only did this discourage tourist traffic, but it held back city development. The extra rates payable by hotel proprietors who were permitted improvements would be a big thing to Dunedin.