Evening Post. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1929. COST OF CONGESTION

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 136, 5 December 1929, Page 8

Evening Post. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1929. COST OF CONGESTION

In the second article by the Director of Town-Planning, which we publish to-day, the point is emphasised that town and regional planning is not of interest to the cities alone. It concerns every individual in the community, and not least the farmer. This is the business aspect of town-planning, an aspect which has sometimes been disregarded because the aesthetic side has been over-stressed. In business, planning means efficiency. The shopkeeper who has no system finds his profits diminishing, his business falling, and his overhead charges rising. If his competitors display more organising capacity, they take his business. If all are.equally muddled, it is the customer who pays. In our city organisation the same principle applies. An over-rated town loses business when it is possible to transfer that business to another centre. Where that transfer is not possible, the customers pay. The lack of organisation in New Zealand towns costs the community as a whole a substantial sum. Further, as the Director points out, the loss does not stop with the customer. The farmer, who has to pay for wastes in the provision of the goods and facilities which he requires, has less money to spend. When the cost of providing facilities is high, less can be given for the money available. Inevitably this leads to a limitation of local enterprise. Work which could be done in New Zealand, if costs were lower, is. done elsewhere. !The farmer, the manufacturer, and the trader are therefore all vitally concerned.

The urgent need for better organisation is fully demonstrated in Mr. Mawson's argument. The provision of such organisation, it is clear, is a matter for the public authority, led ,by the State, and administered by local governing bodies. It is not interference with private enterprise and "more government m business," but necessary direction and control of public and private activity in the interests of greater enterprise—and less muddle. The community has to pay for mistakes, so the community.is fully entitled to provide safeguards against error. No one who has given the least thought to the subject can doubt that such safeguards are necessary and economically profitable. One has only to remember the cost —running in hundreds of thousands sterling—of rectifying mistakes in Wellington to realise how profitable planning would have been if instituted years ago. The money spent in doing and undoing would have been available for reproductive enterprise.

It is too late to save tills money, but it is not too late to prevent further waste. In his first article (published in yesterday's issue of "The Post") the Director of TownPlanning discussed a problem which is even now urgently demanding attention in Wellington—the problem of congestion in the centre of the city. Huge sums have been spent in street-widening to lessen that congestion; but this has given only temporary relief. No sooner has one widening scheme been completed than the need for some other palli-ative—-a further widening or traffic deviation—has become apparent. The Director holds that a permanent cure cannot be found by such means. It is necessary to go deeper to find the root causes of the trouble. This root cause he holds to be the erection of buildings of greater capacity than the streets on which they front. Our present building bylaws, he shows, permit building on a scale which the streets cannot stand—if all propertyowners build to the permissible limit. There is no present danger of that limit being built to on every section. Before such a point could be reached the congestion would be so serious that a check would be automatically imposed; but we cannot afford to rely upon such automatic checks which do not operate until there has been heavy loss.

It is wiser to apply regulation on reasonable lines. The Director advises efficient zoning regulation without, delay— to adjust the buildings to the street widths rather than attempting to widen the streets to suit the building. He recognises that such regulation would evoke protests from property-owners, and some would incur losses. But can any other means of meeting the difficulty be devised? A policy of drift would also involve loss, when the automatic check of congestion came to be applied. Already there is the beginning of such loss. Shopkeepers in some of the busy streets say that their business is suffering because the traffic congestion is driving people to shop elsewhere. It would be necessary, of course, for the effect of the regulations to be taken into account as between the municipality and the property-owner. If a new height maximum were fixed, buildings erected under the present bylaws could not be chopped down; but the owner of land on which only a 60ft building could be erected would be entitled to consideration as against the owner who had already erected a 100 ft structure. This would not, however, entail great difficulty. Adjustment of valuations would be comparatively simple. There are, of course, other difficulties to be met, .but the guestipa for, all concerned to

;consider is: Shall we try u» meet these difficulties or muddle on until iho difficulties have come more llian half-way to meet us? This is not a mailer for ratepayers alone. It concerns everybody, for whal ihc ratepayer pays to-day ihc customer is charged to-morrow. Ate we prepared to face the problem and submit to reasonable zoning regulations, or do we wish to go ahead with a programme of street-widening which the Director slates "may cosl £5,000,----000 before it is complete"? The rating entailed may easily absorb any profit derivable by properly-owncrs from tho maintenance of the present building regulations. The subject is of sufficient importance to demand urgent and immediate attention from tho Cily Council. The Director of Town-Planning, the Council should remember, speaks with exact knowledge, the fruit of world-wide sludy and experience of the problem which ho discusses.