TOWN-PLANNING LAWS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 202, 21 May 1919, Page 9

TOWN-PLANNING LAWS

WHAT NEW ZEALAND NEEDS SURVEY BY MR. H. F. VON HAAST A | paper on "Town-planning Legislation" was read before the Town-planning Conference by Mr. 11. P. von Ilnast, who made a detailed survey of what hart been done in other countries, and suggested tne measures that were required in New Zealand, ile said that tne cost of. replnniting existing cities was enormous, and possibly pronibilive. In its practical application town-planning had been defined ns "the science ol pre-planning •■ill unimproved land ; n .or adjoining towns or. cities likely lo be used for building or other civie purposes within the next thirty or fifty years." . Mi', von Haast sketched" the town-plan-ning laws of Great Britain, Sweden, and Germany. "New Zealand town-planners mil agree," ho added, "that legislation is essential, and that little can he achieved without a Town-planning Act somewhat on the lines'of the English Act nf lWli). but simpler, less cumbrous, and more elastic. There must be a central authority, a town-planning department, presided over by nil expert town-planner, tho pivot o» which tho whole machinery revolves. ■Mich an expert central authority is necessary:—

(a) Becnuse we have Dominion planning as well as purely town-planning to' do, considerations of arterial roads, national aerodromes, pre-planning of country villages, the focus of rural settlement where no local authority is'particularly interested; preservation of 1 natural and historical features ot (he country, reservation of sites for public buildings, schools, national monuments.

lb! Because in- all town-planning schemes of any dimensions there are all sorts of governmental, departmental, and public interests to be considered, reconciled, and co-ordinated, and

(c) Because there must bo a central authority to not as ii mediator, arbitrator, and final court of appeal between the local authority initiating the scheme, and other' adjoining local authorities, persons, and bodies interested, and to give them the benefit of expert advice and experience.

In view of the regard and affection in which New Zealand is held in the Mother Country, and in view of the field that ii young Dominion oilers for townplanning schemes, it is probable that we could induco one of the leading townplanners in England, who has been associated with municipal bchemes And with garden-cities, to come out and organise the department, lay down a broad policy for the Dominion, sketch out model provisions for town-planning schemes, help to guide our municipalities' in the main lines'of their schemes, himself-plan and lav out as an" object-lesson a garden city suburb, and als» <i rural village, and train in his methods some of uur young engineers, architects, and surveyors to carry on the work on ttip lines he had inaugurated. In other- words he would do for, the town-planning of the Dominion what Mr. Perry hn.rso ably done for our hydro-electric scheme. We should have to pay him a largo salary, but it would be worth it.

He should be kept free from politics and political pull, be provided with an adequate sinft' of assistants, and unhampered by a board of non-expert critics such as heads of other departments, each with his hands full of his own ■ work, and with the conservative point of view of the importance of his own department, and the superiority of the established method and routine Over newfangled imparted ideas. But it would, of course, be necessary where the -interests of' any department were concerned to confer with the head of that departinenl 'so far as any scheme affected it.

Mr. von Haast insisted that the local authority, and not the Government,, should control town-planning operations. "The whole success 'if town-planning schemes,"-he said, "depends not upon the provisions in die Statute Book, but upon the spirit that pervades the council and the citizens, the idea that the welfaie of the community must prevail over the interest of the individual, a. reasonable spirit of give-amHiake, '' a, pride in having made some concession, however small, or granted some park or open space that will hereafter be a monument to the giver r.s a citizen of no mean city., And r-n the part of the Government a recognition, and not a disregard, of the regulations and amenities of the city of the Dominion. A. Government that can perpetrate such an outrage on the amenities' of the capital as Ihe S(|iiat shed athwart the street between the Government Buildings and the Supreme Court must be born again if it is to give effect to the fundamental principles of town-planning. Such nn offence, should be punishable with five years' hard labour in the demolition of slums."