PLANS FOR NAENAE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 19, 23 July 1945, Page 7

PLANS FOR NAENAE

VALLEY INDUSTRIES

FACTORIES AND GARDENS

Factories with gardens—the idea may not be very familier to New Zealand but it is accepted overseas, and it is an idea that is to be given application in the light industrial area to be established at Naenae, north of. the. present built-up areas of Lower Hutt Cstv but included in the enlarged city boundaries. One factory is already established, closely associated with the home-building activities m Naenae, but nlans for other factories are m hand and their construction will be commenced in the near future.

Reference-.■■was made in previousl articles on the housing development in the Hutt Valley to the. importance attached by the planners to a balance between the utilitarian'and the attractive so that the new Valley city shall be a beautiful place, to live in when gardens flourish? trees and avenues grow and when the ' "openness" 01 Groups of hundreds of new homes is closed by dividing hedges and stretches of lawns where neighbours lo not think dividing hedges are This'"openness," too, is real, for notwithstanding a prevalent idea that toe houses are placed too closely together, the minimum separation is geneially about 13 feet, which is a wider separation than in most present-day subdiviSl<The planners also have endeavoured to ensure that the industrial area to be established at Naenae shall be, as regards surroundings and settings 01 the factories, an attractive place in which to work. The Naenae industrial area, of about 30 acres, is across the, main east-west roadway from the business and civic centre described and pictured in "The Post" recently, so that while it will be closely adjacent it will be distinctly zoned from the business and pleasure centre. The conditions agreed upon between the town planning section of tne Housing Department and the Lower Hutt City Council limit permissible industries strictly to those which, will create no nuisance, whether of noise, smoke, or fumes, but there will still be a wide possible range within those limitations; electrical power remoyes need for smokestacks in such an industrial area. FACTORIES SET BACK. One most interesting condition is that no industrial building there may cover more than 50 per cent, of its site; that it must be set back at least 15 feet from the street line, and that it must have a lawn or garden frontage. If those conditions are a surprise to Wellington, they are nothing new in garden cities and in well-planned industrial developments in many countries, and they can be applied simply enough at Naenae—once the idea of "such a waste of ground" is met—because the development starts from practically open ground. They aim at ensuring that a .factory ■ area shall not deteriorate as time goes on into a dingy blot upon the city, and how well they" apply can be seen on a limited scale at one or two of the larger works in Gracefield Road, Lower Hutt, where the managements, accustomed to such good housekeeping at parent factories overseas, voluntarily gave their factories lawn and garden frontages. A biscuit factory in Waiwhetu Rpad is another excellent Valley example, with not only lawns and gardens, but with attractive treatment of the Waiwhetu Stream in the foreground. There are one or two gardened factories in Wellington itself, in spite of the shortage of ground space, but Christchurch, so far, best shows New Zealand the way insetting industry among attractive surroundings. Some Christchurch industries there have gardened their factory surrounds for many years, but it has only recently been accepted that a new factory should have lawns and gardens as a matter of course. Even during her six years of war Britain thought it worth while to maintain her factory gardens, and not only in her garden cities, but in straight-out ■■ industrial- developments and industrial estates; the hard-headed business heads of Glasgow, for instance, gardened the frontages of factories at Hillington while the estate was still expanding under war pressure. Lawns and rose gardens may not pay cash dividends, but managements of great concerns which are very much interested in cash dividends are evidently satisfied that dividends are forthcoming, socially and psychologically. . The basic idea for the Naenae midustrial area is that it shall conform generally with the rest of the lay-out, with a green grass and • tree-planted air very like that of the business centre over the street and with the gardened appearance of the residential streets and the public reserves-and I playing fields, but as trees do not grow overnight it will be a few years before i the aim can be achieved.

Blatant advertising will be forbidden by a clause in each lease; it will not be a place of magnificent hoardings, sky signs, or wall advertisements competitive in colour and size and variety of lettering. The present intention is to restrict signs to reasonable dimensions and to plain announcements of the names of the firms and their businesses. Trees and greenery will have preference over hoardings.

The main east-west roadway is 76 feet wide, with a paved width of 36 feet, and lesser roads have 36 feet of paving. They will be traffic ways only; no parking will be permitted. Instead, each industrial lot is required to make provision, off the roadway, for both loading operations and for parking of business vehicles and cars which may be used by employees. This is an ideal spoken of with little hope of attainment in many a city and town, for therein is the one real solution of the car parking problem. In the Hutt Valley development it is possible, if the plans are laid well ahead, just as are the tree-planted streets, the ample, linked reserves and tree-shaded walks and the garden atmosphere of the new city as a whole, for here the planners could start with almost wide-open spaces.