POWERS CONFERRED ON TOWN PLANNERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 143, 7 September 1927, Page 9

POWERS CONFERRED ON TOWN PLANNERS

CRITICISM ANSWERED LEGISLATION EXPLAINED (THE SUN'S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Tuesday. Tlie recent criticism of the townplanning legislation and of its operation was referred to by the Hon. Sir Maui Pomare, acting Minister of Internal Affairs, to-day. The object of the legislation, he said, is primarily to ensure the preparation of town-plan-ing schemes, and is applicable equally to every borough council in New Zealand. The powers to carry out a townplanning scheme were not really to be found in the Town Planning Act, but in the Municipal Corporations Act. The Town Planning Act does not alter the essential functions of a borough council, but. merely ensures that those functions shall be exercised in accordance with the scheme and not haphazardly. The Municipal Corporations Act confers those powers that should be possessed in common by all local authorities. The Town Planning Act confers special and exceptional powers. The Act did not give specific powers in various directions (as for example to enable a council to borrow money without taking a poll of the ratepayers). Every person having any estate or interest in any land taken or injuriously affected by a townplanning scheme was given a right to compensation.