LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 265, 5 August 1919, Page 8

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

THE BETTERMENT IDEA

WHY NOT PI;OVIDE FACILITIES FOli IT?

Sir.—ln Mr. W. H. Morton's Inst letter to the Mayor (which Tan Dominion, published). tho City Engineer mentioned that he found that as a rule the splendid asphalt and concrete roads he had inspected were paid for by the propertyowners along tho road. This is tho old bettermeni idea, which, generally speaking, works out bettor in theory than in practice, tho principles of which may fit America- as applied to roads better than anv other country in the wurld, because, as Mr. Morton says, there is a car to every twelve people, and that because cars and petrol are dirt cheap compared with New Zealand prices, 'i'o car-own-ers coodroad6 mean money in the pocket, but where there is perhaps not a car to every four hundred people, the principle may not be so eagerly accepted. If it became law for the main arterial roads to be built and maintained by those wheso property abutted on to lliem, 1 am afraid that the value of the land . just round the corner" would be appreciated. It was at one time suggested that u-ie betterment principle should 1>- applied to the proposed improvements in Oriental Bav. It was an ideal ground lor the experiment, for everyone knows how the value of property has been at least doubled by the improvements that the v-hole of the ratepayers have to provide, vet so far I have never lieari an Oriental Bavite say as much as "Thank you, .iollow-mtepuyers!" Now, every part of tho citv is looking for betterment. It n> a healthv sian. It shows that we are, talcing an interest in ourselves, and it that be the ease wliv does tlie City Council not encourage it? Why not have a betterment provision in our by-laws, whereby the property-owners in a sweet could come together and decide to asphalt or concrete it, either out of their own pockets or with the assistance of the Citv Council? Such a provision could do not harm, and would give deserving, ambitious and progressive citizens a chance to help themselves and their neighbours in the provision of permanent road surfaces. 1 live in a street hardly a Quarter of a mile.long, quite near to the city, and *ini pretty sutg that if energetic committee were formed to canvass property-owners, they would be in a iwsition to guarantee 50 per cent, of the cost of a permanent road surface, even if" it were only to get rid of the dust nuisance. With such an mducementand the saving that would be effected for nil time to come by the council bv twin" practically no maintenance to finance —the council could well afford to favourably consider finding tlie other 50 per cent. I suggest the idea of practical betterment to. tho town-nlnnnors and city beautifiere. who appear to me to do nothing but talk.—l am, e^ TpOINT