A VISITOR'S COMPLAINT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 60, 8 April 1946, Page 5

A VISITOR'S COMPLAINT

DEARTH OF BUILDING SITES HARBOUR BOARD DISCUSSION Yet another illustration of the desperate shortage of both house and business sections and building sites in Whakatane was furnished at the meeting of the Whakatane Harbour Board last Friday, when a letter was received from a visiting businessman who desired to set up a business but had been unable to find a suitable site.

Members of the Board commented at length on the serious shortage of accommodation in the town and expressed the greatest sympathy with those who were handicapped on account of the section shortage. The letter stated that the writer recently visited the town for the purpose of obtaining either a business, or a building site for a business. Information was obtained regarding sub-divisions by the Harbour Board, and if this was correct application was made for one section, not less | than 40 feet frontage, adjacent if possible to the first lot already taken up. The section was not required for speculation, but the writer was anxious to assist his sons recently returned from overseas, in rehabilitating themselves in business in some progressive tov/n. It was asked that the application be considered as soon as possible as it was desired that a building be commenced as soon as a permit could be obtained.

Mr Hunter said he understood that the person concerned had found it practically impossible to build in Whakatane and was now considering building in Edgecumbe where the position was not acute and here a better selection of site was possible.

The Board decided to write regretting its inability to offer any new sections at present but intimating that under its new extension scheme there would be ample scope for building sites, and that the writer would be notified as soon as any sections were made available.