FARMERS’ FEARS OF NEW BY-LAW ON BUILDING

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 68, 23 March 1949, Page 5

FARMERS’ FEARS OF NEW BY-LAW ON BUILDING

General concern at the possibility that the new County building bylaw might be allowed to apply to buildings other than dwelling houses and that drainage by none other than registered plumbers might be insisted upon was expressed by a number of speakers at yesteday morning’s meeting of the Bay of Plenty sub-provincial executive of Federated Farmers (Auckland Province). The meeting adopted a remit from the Rangitaiki Plains branch taking exception to any regulations covering farm buildings other than dwellings used purely for residential purposes. Mr J. Neilsen recalled that in 1933 the County Council had adopted regulations to cover the building of all dwellings in the County, but their enforcement had been held up until the present time. Angle of the thing that had worried members of his branch was that the regulations might possibly be made to apply to all buildings.

County Clerk’s Assurance However, the County Clerk had given an assurance that there was no intention to interfere with farm buildings other than dwellings, nor with dwellings provided they conformed to a certain standard.

A Manawahe delegate said the County engineer had given a meeting there to understand the regular tions meant the Council could control all buildings costing over £2OO. Reassuring Tidings

Mr R. W. Dunning, just back from the County meeting where he had lodged an objection on behalf of the Sub-Province and a group of ratepayers, said he had the impression that the Council had no intention of introducing anything that would prove irksome to farmers, and he had been assured by the Council that some control of building/in the County was necessary. However, there had been cases in other areas where stiff building regulations had proved a serious handicap to farmers. The chairman of the Council had informed him that the Council had no intention at this stage of interfering with drainage.

A Natural Concern It was probably true that other districts had started with equally good intentions, but, in the light of experiences of others elsewhere, farmers’ concern with the possible extension of such regulations to farm areas in the main and to all farm buildings was not unnatural.

Mr Dunning’s action was endorsed and a number of speakers expressed their concern at “leaving the door open” for the enforcement of regulations that could be so interpreted as to constitute what they would consider undue interference.

The Rangitaiki remit was adopted unanimously.