Council Frustrated By Lack Of Town Planning Scheme

Chronicle (Levin), 2 November 1949, Page 4

Council Frustrated By Lack Of Town Planning Scheme

Lack of the necessary authority to take a firm stand has forced the Levin Borough Council to reluctantly agree to the erection of an industrial buildinf? in a Playford Park E'state section. At the last meeting of the council it was decided to defer the application for the building (a workshop) until the borough solicitor had investigated the position. At a special meeting of the council o^ Monday night the solicitor told the council that it could do nothing to prevent industry establishing itself in the estate, or in fact in any part of the borough, and that the workshop application would have to be passed. The Mayor, Mr. H. B; Burdekin, said that the applicant had taken "the view that no1 restriction had been placed on the section when he had purchased it an-d the borough by-laws gave no authority tr the council to stop the erection of any such building. It was an~ other argument in favour of the introduction of a town planning scheme, but of course what the council pianned to do in the future had nobhing to do with the pres0IX'b CSS0. The council had the right to stop people creating a nuisance, contended Cr. A. W. Parton and he quoted a borough by-law relative to public nuisances. In Wellington people were prevented from •creating nuisances. "We should dig our toes in and stop this sort of thing," he added. The nuisance had to be there ( before the council had power -.to stop it, remarked Mr. Burdekin. One could not anticipate nuisances. A motion that the application be granted was submitted by Cr. R. A. Frederikson. It was seconded by Cr. D. J. Sweetzer. The Mayor said that fhe 'council's previous engineer had been working on a town planning scheme a year. or two ago, an-d he thought that this should be gone on with. The committee set up at the last meeting of the council could probably investigate this further and bring dawn its recommendations. It was decided to grant the applicant permission to erect the workshop as requested.