REGIONAL PLANNING

Hokitika Guardian, 2 January 1930, Page 2

REGIONAL PLANNING

WILL SAVE MILLIONS. NEW ACT COMING. WELLINGTON, December 28. As the result of a conference at Auckland, at .which twenty local bodies were represented, a distinct' step has been taken towards initiating a regional planning scheme for the city and surrounding districts. After being addressed bv Mr J.W. Mawson, Director of town Planning, the conference decided that delegates should propose to their respective local bodies the need for united effort in respect of a regional planning scheme. A further conference is to be held in three months’ time, when the question of the. area to be included in the scheme will be decided. In the course of- his address Mr Mawson expressed the opinion that no doubt a regional plan would already have been prepared had the empowering legislation been available. An Act has now been placed on the Statute Book which he believed would remove difficulties under which town-planners had been labouring. He had hopes that within a year tne 1926 Act would be taken off the Statute Hr ok and replaced by a new Act more in accordance with modem theory and practice in town-planning. Mr Mawson said he believed that in regional planning they had in their hands an instrument which, if properly used, could be made to exercise a greater influence over the social and economic life of the community than that resulting from any legislation in recent years. The question would have to be approached in the right spirit. Any suggestion of parochialism would cripple the scheme from the start. Once a regional scheme had been prepared by the committee, a local authority concerned would find it very difficult to depart from the committee’s provisions. A very good excuse would have to be put forward before a regional committee would change its views. Every assurance was contained in the legislation that a committee’s scheme would not be flouted.

He was perfectly sure that regional schemes woud save the country millions of pounds. The schemes would lay down a definite policy of development and enable the saving of a considerable percentage of money spent out of public funds in regard both to capital expenditure, and maintenance. The area which would probably be controlled by the regional authority would total 500,000 acres, with a population of 231,000 and a capital value of £86,600,000. A rate of one-fiftieth of a penny provided for in the Act would produce £7OOO which would be adequate for the purposes of any committee in New Zealand.