Photograph by courtesy Dunedin City Council. • Aerial photogrammetric mapping • Large scale photo enlargements • Mosaics • Ground control surveys AERO SURVEYS New Zea and LTD. P.O. Box 444 Tauranga Telephone 88-166 TOWN PLANNING QUARTERLY •Layout, Design &Production: COVER: "WELLINGTON Editor: J. R. Dart WIND" EVENING POST. Technical Editor: M. H. Pritchard D. Vendramini Department of Town Planning. J. Graham University of Auckland. MARCH 1974 NUMBER 25 EDITORIAL COMMUNITY PROPERTY DEREK HALL CASEBOOK CHRISTINE MOORE A CONTRAST IN SETTLEMENT: AUCKLAND AND WELLINGTON 1840-41 RICHARD BELLAMY 17 ABOUT WATER T.W. FOOKES 24 OVERSPILL ALTERNATIVE FOR SOUTH AUCKLAND. (PART 2) 28 CONFERENCES SYLVIA McCURDY 29 LETTER FROM SCOTLAND D.H. FR EESTON 33 WIND ENVIRONMENT OF BUILDINGS 38 INSTITUTE AFFAIRS Town Planning Quarterly is the official journal of the New Address all correspondence to the Editor: Town Planning Zealand Planning Institute Incorporated, P.O. Box 5131, Quarterly, P.O. Box 8789, Symonds Street, Auckland 1. WeUington. Telephone/Telegrams: 74-740 The Institute does not accept responsibility for statements made or opinions expressed in this Journal unless this responsibility is expressly acknowledged. Printed by Published March, June, September, December. Scott Printing Co. Ltd., Annual Subscription: $3 (New Zealand and Australia) 29-31 Rutland Street, post free, elsewhere $NZ. 4.50 Auckland 1. The Mayor of Auckland caught the headlines recently with his suggestion that a group be formed to examine the extent and nature of the metropolitan area's future growth. The idea, so far anyway, seems not to have been taken very seriously, but is is one that is worth pursuing. The Auckland Regional Authority is, of course, the body charged with the responsibility of developing regional growth strategies and it is in the process of preparing a report on possible alternative urban forms. The Mayor's remarks, however, suggest that the team that he has in mind is one that would fall outside the existing formal government structures. Its merit, no doubt, would be seen in its ability to be more free-ranging in its identification and consideration of the issues involved. It would be less conditioned in its thinking; more willing to question the conventional wisdom surrounding the subject. In so doing, it would not confine itself to physical planning con- straints, but would pursue the implications of the existing social, economic and political factors that determine and shape the physical structure. A measure of intelligence is the ability to anticipate the future and a measure of community is the strength of the collective desire to determine the future. The greater level of understanding of the forces at work and the greater the awareness of the implications of alternative courses of action, the better will be the public's participation in the decision-making process. The more con- scious and explicit the quantity and quality of Auckland's future growth, the more likely will be the community's readiness to support and enforce restric- tions upon individual freedom of action. The extreme alternatives may be seen to be the exhilaration of a community sense of purpose on the one hand and a sullen, passive resistance to all government policy on the other. The first task that such a team would have to put its mind to would be the identification of the problems that it would have been set up to examine. Implicit in that task would be the acceptance of the fact that the present situation of the so-called free play of market forces, curbed a little by a crudely applied system of land use controls, is leading us toward a future state that we do not wish to inherit ourselves nor pass on to the next genera- tion of citizens. It would be concluded that the city, as do all of our cities, reflects the uncertainty of the values of our society and that a clarification of these is a prerequisite to improvements elsewhere. COMMUNITY PROPERTY Central to the issue will be seen to be the nature of the ownership of rights in land. This has always proved to be the major and often insurmountable hurdle, for the price of greater restrictions upon those rights has usually been seen to be higher than the less tangible benefits of a better environment for the citizens overall. During the nineteenth century it could be held that "of the three fundamental principles that underlie government and for which government exists, the protection of life, liberty and property, the chief of these is property." It is an attitude that still runs as a strong thread through the values of our own day. Yet the more stringent controlling and directing of the nature and form of urban growth is not possible without grasping this nettle first. In reply to the contention that, "land, like the air, rain and sun, belongs to all", it has been pointed out that land can be appropriated. It needs further to be pointed out, however, that rights in land are confirmed by the community and are effective only in so far as they are guaranteed and since there are no absolute rights, those that are conferred should always be subservient to the community's interest. If more effective measures are to be taken concerning urban growth, then the multiplicity of land ownership on the urban fringe and the whim of individual decision-making with regard to the timing, extent and quality of its transfer from non-urban to urban uses will have to be substantially curtailed. It is merely misleading the public to speak of, for example, linear growth forms, finger plans and satellite towns, without debating once again the advantages and disadvantages of the community ownership of peripheral lands. It is a debate, the conclusions of which were anticipated in the case of the proposed new town at Rolleston near Christchurch. Certainly, public ownership of land does avoid the seeming brick wall of compensation and betterment. More important for that generation that is treading the slipperly slope of financing its first section, the one step forward and two backwards of finding the deposit during this time of rife escalation, would be sanded a little if the speculative element in vacant land transfers was removed. A more accurate assessment of the pluralistic nature of urban society will show that the right to speculatively exploit the steadily increasing demand for a fixed resource is one that can be readily dispensed with. We cannot both pursue the capitalist ethic and expect to achieve a better physical environment.• J.R. Dart. clearly beyond the power of the Council; (b) The code provision allows the City Planner to grant such dispensations whereas section 21(1A) specifies that the Council itself must @1U D E) CCI be the grantor." D.R. Hall The clause was not helped by the explanatory note stating that the dispensing power was now subject to s.21(1A)That subsection was purely an empowering Derek Hall, LLB(NZ), DipTP (Hons) one and could not qualify the Code. (Auck), (M), is a Senior Lecturer in Strict compliance with s.21 (1 A) appears to be Town Planning at the University of necessary. Auckland. Following the Court decision in Smeaton v Queenstown Borough Council (1972)4 NZTPA 410, commented on in TPQ 33 at p.6, it is also interesting Waiver and Dispensation Clauses that in this Presbyterian Church Property Trustees' Presbyterian Church Property Trustees y. Wellington case the Board would not allow less stringent City Council, Special Town and Country Planning standards for front and side yards to be included as Appeal Board, 31 August 1973, Decisions p. A315 part of a conditional use consent. The Board said (to be reported) is the first decision which comments that to do so would have negated s.21(1A) and re- significantly on a waiver and dispensation clause sulted in a dispensation being granted in a manner under s.21(1A) of the Town and Country Planning not contemplated by s.35. The rights of the adjoin- Act. ing occupier, it was said, should not be endangered Council's code included the following ordinance: by substituting a s.28C application for a s.35 applic- "Dispensing Power of the Council ation. Smeaton was, therefore, distinguished on Where, in the opinion of the Council, a full com- this point. pliance with any of the provisions of this code Two Houses or One? would needlessly and injuriously affect any person The futility of using some patently artificial device in the course of operation of the business of or be to circumvent the clear intention of a code provision attended with loss or inconvenience to any person was illustrated in the not-too-unfamiliar circumstances or persons without any corresponding gain to the of Coleman v Hamilton City Council, Supreme community, then, and in any such case or cases, Court, Hamilton, 26 November 1973, Wilson J. the Council may dispense with the observance or An ordinance in the Code stated that "not more than performance of any of the requirements of this one residential building shall be erected on any site in code, subject to the following procedure, except a residential zone." where otherwise expressly provided for in this code. On a site on which there was already an established building, it was proposed to erect a three-bedroomed (a) Where, in the opinion of the City Planner the dwelling house. The latter was to include a carport dispensation is a minor one which does not con- which was to be built near a wall of the existing flict with the spirit and intent of the code and dwelling and connected to it by bridging a gap to accordingly he recommends that dispensation make a 'walkway' which would however never have should be granted, the Council may resolve to dis- been used as such.