Town Planning.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 43, 11 July 1914, Page 5

Town Planning.

AN EDUCATIONAL LECTURE. THEATRE ROYAL CROWDED. The people of. New Plymouth have never been accused of a too abundant enthusiasm, but at hist night's lecture on "Town Planning'' by Mr. W. H Davidge, P. 5.1., A.R.T.8.A., A.M.I.C.E.' (London County Council), they gave their reputation the lie, and crowded the Theatre Royal in all parts to listen to one of the most instructive and entertaining lectures which has ever been delivered in the town The lecture was profusely illustrated by, numerous excellent photographic films, which were fully explained by the lecturer. New Ply. mouth people were brought into close [touch with a science which is occupying universal attention, and were introduced to a school of town-planning which must have opened the eyes of any conventional disciple of the street which runs through a row of fliouscs and corrugated iron fences. Mr. W. A. Oollis, Deputy-Mayor, took the. chair, and apologised for the absence of his Worship the Mayor. WHAT IT STANDS TOR.

"Town planning," said Mr. Davidge, "stood for the co-ordination of all the efforts which n.ade for the improvement of the town. In the past, all the work of town improvement, social reform, improved housing, and town beatification, had been the work of separate bodies, but with town-planning as it now was, all these branches had been incorporated in one movement, it embraced everything, from tli'e laying out of a complete city, like the Australian capital, or of garden villages such as Vwt Sunlight, or Krupps' village at Essen, down to the internal improvement of a city such as had recently been sirried out in Leeds, and a scheme of Blum removal as was at present contemplated in Sydney and other cities. The idea was world-wide. Germany had possessed town-planning powers since 1875, and in Italy and Sweden the movement had an even earlier origin. At a recent conference, on city, planning lit Toronto, there were present representatives from town-planning bodies Eromi all parts of America, and many of them had travelled from three to four thousand miles in order to be present. At the present time, there was hardly i city in America or Canada which was lot contemplating some form of town dunning. THE AMERICAN IDEA.

The American idea, continued the lecturer, was to form some civic centre, round which, sill Hie principal buildings vere grouped, and for some time this lad held undisputed sway, but our American friends wer© beginning to see ;hst more than this was necessary for omplete town-planning. They were re•ognising the futility of a fine central •eature with magnificent buildings vithotit also housing adequately the >eople in the back country. A view was Jiown of the new town' plan for Ckilpiry (Western Canada), demonstrating lcai'ly the failure oi a rectangular theme and the necessity for considerng the extension of fjic town and tuning attention to the morp costly internal improvements.

EUROPEAN CITIES. Tihe growth of all the large cities ot ;he world, said Mr. Davidtrc, had been ibenomenal, especially during tlie last enliiry. One hundred years years ago he.ro wei'e twenty-three cities of iver one hundred thousand peo)le. and now there were 127 and it had >een calculated that fully six-sevenths >f the population of Europe lived in and irouud cities: or towns—ft proportion I'liiell was continually increasing'. NEW ZEALAND SLUMS. A slide was shown of Sir (liristoilier Wren's plan for re-building London ifter the disastrous lire, hut, as Mr. )avidge remarked, unfortunately only :. portion of the plan was carried out, nth the result tlMt Uuidon ha.:l since md to spend many millions on street ridening, as was realistically portrayal iy another slide. The immediate cause >f town-planning in Great Britain, conintied the lecturer, had been tlhe want f system in suburban development and he lack of connecting roads between idjoininpt suburban estates. While the alburns had been developing, the centre >t the cities fast became worse, and ,s Mr. Davidge showed by slides, slums vi'i'c beginninf to appear in Auckland, md other New Zealand cities. GARDEN SUBURBS.

The Town-planning and Garden Citicn Association, of the executive of which Mr. Davidge is a member, advocated as 'ar as possibb, the building of all new towns 'and urban districts with town belts and open space.-- of agricultural and surrounding each town or suburb. In all the English garden suburbs it 11ad been found the greatest economy ;o reduce the width of paved streets to :i minimum, the distance between the houses wa3 never less than the sixtv-six feet required in New Zealand. By this saving in street construction not'only were grass and tree-plant->d margins 'provided on each side, but the economy in cost had enabled rents to l)e reduced by 2s per week for each bouse. Houses' in Hampstead garden suburb vvere not only situated in delightful surrounding* and in line open spaces, out tliey were cheaper to rent than those in the ugly streets of the ordinary Londor. .suburb. ' TRANSIT FACILITIES. Transit, facilities wen- mostly the first consideration. For instance, in New York the Teunsylvanian Kadroad tunnel bad r>vent.lv brought into use a m-w area of country wiihm hlteeu minute-' journey from the centre o M-mhattan, and the grmlen surburb .ot ]A rest Hill- was one of the direct con-

m I WWK \ KEW PlA'MGrni. In New Plymouth, Mr. Davidge pointP ,l'. wit. the railway 'juestion <u» 11,,. utmost importance, and no sjbtem of town-planning, either along the geafont or in the centre of the town, tt V- considered witl.out carefully determining the probable future development of railway trailic. At New Plymouth tJhe railway ioimcda serious'obstacle to the develap- ,„ ()f t | u . sea-front, and Mr. Davidge opinion that it would ,av.- l>ocu fur li.-U.-p had the railway in th - lirH instance followed the course of the Mangaotuku stream SIUIm wcw lu-iv shown of railway stations at ioiesl. Hills and other garden suburbs. OCK WATKR-FROXT. liogarding the. development of New Plymouth's water-front Mr. Davidge Mui-csted that it was of importance to asTar as possible, follow the present 0.011ii.rmaiion, which was a series of gentle curve?, a curved line for water- vontor tre» stvci-ts bavin" the most charming elVcct 'the plan of New Plymouth in 1542 showed a public reserve the whole Viurth of the sea-front, but a portio-i ot this bad been lost since the advent of the railway. The beauties of Pukekura Park ea -.« iu for .-pecial connneudation, and Air. Davidge urged the necessity not only of preserving all the natural beauties,

but of steadily improving the Park sc us to hand it on to the next gcneratioi (ih an even fairer heritage than it waf already. In the early plan of New Ply. mouth a town belt was provided, but : large part of this had since been built over and permanently lost to the public One recognised feature of modern town. planning was the linking up of parks ami open spaces by a system of park-wayt or reserves, and this, on the lines ol the early plans of New Plymouth, had in other cities been tihe fore-runner ol great endeavor. The Park lands of Adelaide were a notable example, and Minneapolis, Chicago and other American cities had all followed the example of the old New Zealand Company's townplanners. It was a great pity that Aew Zealand Jiad ever departed from this plan, and New Plymouth must see to it that she followed the example of tihe cities mentioned. Even-worse than the loss of the town belts, however, was the destruction of volcanic cones, sucli as Mt. Albert in Auckland, a largo portion of which was being demolished to provide railway ballast. Given a proper town-planning scheme, and the congestion of buildings could be prcTenUd. The tendency to increase the height of buildings was almost universal, but even in New York efforts were being made to limit tihe height of buildings to a reasonable extent, and in all countries continued efforts were being made for the preservation of light and air space, [which was impossible in an area of skyscrapers. Moreover, ho pointed out that the sky-scraper in New York was not a payable proposition. New Zealand had something .like sky-scrapers now, but the movement must not be allowed to go further. FACTORY ZONES.

In New Plymouth, Mr. Davidge remarked, there were at present no factories, although the oilfields and refinery had begun to look forbidding, but it would be well to keep in view the German plan of prescribing special zones ofr industrial institutions. In Germany the custom was to have all such areas to the leeward of the town, so that tlis prevailing winds did not blow smoke and waft odors all through the town. •MUNICIPAL LAND. The German municipalities lield a great advantage in the large jircas of land which they owned. Slides illustrating those were shown of Stuttgart, Ulm and other towns. The lecturer continued that Ulm had a special proviso which prevented a combine forcing up unduly the price of land—wihieh was all, as far as possible, held for the people. The investments in municipally-owned land in Ulm amounted to £50,000, but Ulm had not only found her land purchases good business from the people's point of view, but also very profitable. The town had made a net profit of £50.000 on her land purchases, and now held about 10,000 acres of municipal land. Moreover, although she allowed a citizen to purchase this land, he could sell . it at the figure for which he bought i it. A WORD OF WARNING. j While on the question of land purchase, Mr. Davidgc remarked that the fact that land had been sold in Devon street, New Plymouth, at £2OO per foot pointed to the necessity for urgent action to prevent the price of land from being unduly forced up. STREET-PLANNING. The completeness with which German towns such as Dnsseldorf and Cologne plan their new streets and districts was well illustrated by slides which emphasised the restraint in architecture and Oho quiet dignity of design, which, as Mr. Davidge pointed out, formed such ii striking contrast to many of the Australasian towns. LETCHWORTH. A complete illustration was shown of the garden city of Letch worth, which was founded in 1898 by Mr. Ebenezcr Howard. The town has now a population of 8000, and it is arranged 60 that it has a complete belt of agricultural land surrounding it. The general plan of the town, as Mr. Davidge pointed out, was on modern town-planning lines, with comparatively narrow streets and true and grass margins. The main principle of Letcliworth garden city, Mr. Davidge continued, was to combine advantage to the town with charm of construction. At present there were in Letcliworth forty factories, one of which (shewn on the screen) was owned by Mr. Dent, fattier of the Rev. Mr. Dent,' of Eltham. ONE FAMILY, ONK HOUSE. A great feature of Letcliworth, as of ' nil the modern "town-planned" towns of Great Britain, was the. limitation of the number of houses which were built on an acre of land. New Zealanders should cling as to their religion to the principle of "one family, one house." Germany was too late in realising the costliness, both in money and health, of tenement houses. In Berlin there was an ; average of 77 persons to each house, as against nine to each house in London, It was essential that all new countries should avoid the mistakes of older lands in this respect. PREPARE FOR THE FUTURE. Birmingham, London and other Ai'w.3 were preparing town-planning schemes, showing main arterial roads running far into the city, and it was recognised throughout Great Britain that all tile, main roads required, or likely to be required, should be laid down and reserved without delay. In New Plymouth a system of tramways would soon be inaugurated. It was important that the question of transit facilities in all possible directions to which New Plymouth might extend should also be considered, and in this connection it should be home in mind that many changes might eventuate, as had been the case in Germany, where trams were running not only along the main roads, but also on special tracks right through the open country at a speed of 30 or 40 miles per hour. This might easily come to pass in New Plymouth. ,

■IIAMPSTEAD GARDEN SUBURB. Tic principles of tie development of tie Hamstead garden suburb we touch' ed on by tie lecturer, with tie aid of numerous lantern slides. Tie open space known as Hampstead Heath had been considerably extended, and it was this extension tiat first made Hampstead garden suburb possible. At the same time a tube railway was being pierced beneath Hampstead Hill, and these two factors together iad resulted in an enormous increase in tlio prosperity of Hampstead Heath. HINTS FOR NEW ZEALAND. One of tie first evidences of this had been an increase in tie value of land from .C4OO to £4OOO per acre, and Mr. Davids suggested tiat wicn a TownPlanuiug Act was introduced in New Zealand one of tie provisions should bo. to ei'pble municipalities to acquire land on the outskirts of cities so tiat tio country might reap tie benefit of its own expansion. Straight streets were almost a rule in New Zealand, but ninny illustrations of Hampstead and other garden suburbs showed that lie pleasing curves were most attractive, especially when thi'v were margined by frees and „ ra ss. in America it was the custom to cam' grass margins right to the front of the bouses without any fences at all, but, of course, allowing for footpaths