STATUS OF OHOPE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 20, 2 November 1943, Page 5

STATUS OF OHOPE

TOWN BOARD PROPOSAL RESIDENTS TO DECIDE Appropos the recent discussion "by the Whakatane County Coun■cil with regard to the readjustment of riding boundaries throoughout the County, the suggestion of forming the Ohope Beach settlement into a separate town district of its own, has now taken on tangible form and' will be referred to the ratepay- I ers in that area at an early date. In reply to a query from the council the Under-Secretary for the Department of Internal Affairs, Mr J. ]W. Hecnan, informed the last moot-, ing of the council that in the event t of a Town Board being formed, such XL body had power to levy general ■and separate rates. Another section •of the Town Board Act, authorised County Councils to leavy general rates in counties where there were road or town districts and. the general cffect was that County Councils Were empowered to levy general rates of l%d 'in the £ in independent town districts and the Town Board, a general of £2 in the £ on capital Value. Other points made were: — Population 1. An area not exceeding two -square miles in area and having no one part therein distant more than four miles from any other point 'therein is eligible for constitution -as a Town District. 2. The area must not be within ■a Borough. 3. There must be not less than 50 Himiseholders in the area. 4. A petition should be presented to the Governor-General. 5. The petition is to be signed by not less than two-thirds of the number of 'resident householders" in the ■area. 6. Each signature should be Avituesscd by some, competent person who is to make a declaration verifying signatures. Any number of persons may witness signatures but neach such person must make a declaration. The declaration need not 3jc. statutory. 7. The petition must be accompanied by a statutory declaration., stamped with ;i ■i - stamp, to the cffect that the requisite number of "Householders" are within the area itnd that the petition is signed blithe requisite number of "Resident 'Householders." 8. The term '"Householder" does not mean permanent residence, in the (locality. J). The term ''Resilient Householder" means actual permanent residence in the locality and excludes Kfor example weekenders. "Resident 'Householder" is to be taken to mean 'the person in actual living occupation of a house, either as owner or tenant, and in respect, of such occupied house there shall be only one resident householder. Where any "personi occupies more than one house the houses so occupied by 3iim are to be counted as one house. The total number of resident householders is the total number of liouses actually occupied as above. 10. When the papers, are ready they. should be forwarded to the Under-Secretary, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington, for transmission to the Governor-General in the ordinary way. Procedure Dealing with the question of temporary population the writer slated further: — . "Ii note that you refer to the l'a?t that if the summer population of the Ohope Beach area were taken into account the population would ]>j ■ sufficient for an Lndependent oTwn Board. In this connection I desire to state that in computing the population of any town district lor the purpose of section 3 of the Town Boards Amendment Act, 1908' (No. 2), only permanent residents are taken into consideration. Therelore summer residents would not be taken into consideration in calculating the. population of the Ohope Beach area in considering an application." The chairman. Mr J. L. Burnett, discussing the question said that it bad been realised that Ohope had very little community of. interest with the rest, of the county. The residents there came under a diilt'erent category altogether. The suggestion of a new riding for Ohope was out of the question owing to the smallness of the area. Therefore the. suggestion of a separate and independent Town Board area had been, investigated. Wide Difference Cr McCready agreed that the action taken was most appropriate. As representative of Ohope along with Taneatua he realised, that there (Continued in next column)

was a wide difference lie twee n the st;itus of the two areas and if Ohope residents felt, they would like to control their own affairs he was quite agreeable. Cr McGougan thought the step would be a good one which would l)e for Ohope's benefit. "Ohope's a growing area," said, the chairman again, and the. more residents out there will give rise to their own individual problems. Probably the people themselves are the qualified to handle these problems. The eouneil decided that a copy of the letter from the Department be handed to the Ohope ratepayers, and that the County Cleric co-oper-ate by furnishing any relevant information required from county records. Further that the Ohope ratepayers be advised that, it is opposed to increasing the number of ridings or the number of councillors obtaining at the present time.