AN APPEAL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5384, 29 June 1878, Page 3

AN APPEAL.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sin, —Give me space in your columns to direct attention to an enormous evil that is quietly but rapidly spreading in the colony, and especially in the Wellington District. I allude to the excessively narrow width of the socalled streets (properly, lanes or alleys) that it is the almost invariable practice of land proprietors to have laid off in the survey of their properties into private townships. Not satisfied with the handsome suras they are now enabled to realise for laud that a few months or years ago cost them only a small percentage on those amounts, they appear to begrudge every rood necessarily set apart to provide some sort of access to the allotments they offer for sale. By this mistaken policy I contend they not only deter those from buying who are prepared to give the best price for the land (for no one unless from necessity would purchase land fronting a narrow alley), but they perpetuate an evil that will become more felt as years roll on. A width to streets of at least one chain (66ft.) is absolutely necessary for the requirements of traffic, admission of sun and air, sewerage, water supiply, &o. As these townships become thickly populated, the want of this provision will render a residence therein very undesirable; those of the inhabitants in a position to do so will from time to time sell their properties in consequence, and remove to more wholesome localities, and eventually the neighborhood will become alone the haunt of poverty, vice, and crime. The immediate suburbs of Wellington have long been subjected to this demoralising process, the Hutt district until recently escaping. The pest has, however, now extended to that pleasant locality. Large areas have been cut up into minute lots fronting narrow alleys, without the smallest reserve for recreation, education, or any public purpose whatever ; and this with thousands of acres of beautiful level land adjoining, entirely unbuilt upon. Worst of all, a property there, almost unrivalled in the colony for the choice variety and beauty of its various trees, shrubs, and plants, collected from all parts of the globe during the last thirty years, is, it is rumored, to be subjected to the same ignoble fate. If so, I confidently predict that within a short time that beautiful estate (a people's park, planted ready to hand, if the community had the public spirit to secure it when it has the opportunity) will be cat up into minute parallelograms, intersected by narrow lanes at immense distances apart, and the lots pass to a number of small holders, who will have neither taste nor use for the trees, &0., the growth of so many years, and consequently they will speedily disappear. I venture to ask insertion of this letter because I think, attention being drawn to the subject, proprietors who contemplate dividing their properties for sale as townships will find, if they direct that the street lines be at least a chain wide, and a few reserves of small area set apart for public purposes, that so far from such liberality proving a loss to them, it will lead to enhanced prices being secured for the allotments they offer for sale, and the whole property becoming of immensely increased value in years to come.—l am, &c., A Constant Reader. Wellington, June 28.