BETTERMENT OR WORSEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 73, 23 September 1930, Page 15

BETTERMENT OR WORSEMENT

(To the Editor.) Sir, —The public await the intelligence from the Mayor, .or the "Evening Post," concerning the necessity for a Wellington City Betterment Bill (1930), when there is a Wellington City Betterment Act, 1000. Your correspondent, Mi-. John Tucker, tells us quite truly that "plans, specifications, and notification to owners are provided for (in the English Act) before any work is undertaken." Why has not the Mayor been frank and told the public what he wants this new Betterment Bill for? Eatepayers, propertyowners, and Parliament are asked to give the City-Council a blank cheque by this Betterment Bill. The Mayor has no plan, has no specifications of any work. The Bill does not say what it is intended to do. It is a general Bill, and no general Bill should be of special application. Hence the demand for a measure to operate over the whole Dominion. The English Act provides, as Mr. Tucker observes, "compulsory powers to expropriate property owners in case of objection," and why does not the Mayor's Bill provide for such expropriation in such case? Why does not he put in his Bill such a provision as is contained in sectipn 135 (I think it is) of the Public Works Act when land for the public benefit is required by the Government.or local bodies? And why, if this Betterment Bill is necessary for Wellington City as a whole, is Melrosc, Onslow, Miramar, and Karori excluded from its operations? And, above all, why is the onus of proof put upon the property owner instead of upon the Assessment Board before an Arbitration Court of two assessors and a Supreme Court as at present? Not one patriotic citizen desires to block betterment and progress. But all citizens desire that the City Council shall put all its cards on the table and deal fairly with all property owners. The which the Mayor's Betterment Bill does not. The Mayor's Bill pretends to be a bowdlerised copy of tl^e English Act, but the English Act is fair and judicial and sound in law. The Mayor's Bill ,is neither. —I am, etc., RATEPAYER.