BUILDING SECTIONS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 8, 21 March 1947, Page 5

BUILDING SECTIONS

LAND SALES EXEMPTION SOUGHT

BOROUGH COUNCIL DISCUSSION

The claims of thirteen local ex-servicemen, who were potential home-builders near that section of th,e Borough known as the Witchell Estate, were referred by the Chamber of Commerce to the Borough Council last Monday evening, with the suggestion that representations should be made to the Government exempting all sections of a given value from the necessity of going before the Land Sales Committee.

Discussing the letter, the Mayor said he was in agreement with the assertion that the low values placed on Borough sections prevented owners from selling, and thereby held the town back from development in a normal manner. The matter of the ex-servicemen who desired to buy up sections was a case in point, as they had now exhausted all their legal remedies of redress, but on principle he was opposed to the fixing of low values which made section sales uneconomic. v

“We are still being penalised by the prices for which sections were sold during the slump,” said Cr Canning, who related how when the banks took over, sections in this town in 1935 were sold at £5 each. This was the slur from which Whakatane had never recovered, and the Land Sales Court used it as a basis.

Cr Sullivan said he did not know how the Council could assist other than by suggesting an amendment to the Act. It was absurd to quibble over £2O. or £3O on the price of a section which was to carry a home valued at £ISOO or £2OOO.

“Do Councillors realise that building costs today are just three times as great as they were in 1936, and twice as great as in 1938, he asked. While we want to keep land values down we can’t agree with a policy which keeps land down to zero and allows all other building costs to sky-rocket.”

Cr Sullivan said he knew that the fixing of section prices, in Whakatane did not make it possible for the land owner to subdivide, road and kerb, and then show a profit on his scheme. For that reason houses were being built in less, desirable areas, and he was sure the Council was going to get a few headaches from householders who had built in lower Alexander Avenue and Douglas Street. He believed the average citizen had to be protected from exploitation from the unscrupulous property-owner but it seemed a waste of time to dispute a matter of twenty or thirty pounds. On the Mayor’s motion it was decided to make representations to the Minister to amend the Act giving exemption from the Land Sales Committee, sections valued up to £2OO, and instancing the great shortage of building sections in Whakatane as a result of the existing low valuations.