HOUSES OR PURE WATER?

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 631, 6 April 1929, Page 6

HOUSES OR PURE WATER?

PROBLEM OF PUPUKE WATERSHED APPROACH TO HEALTH MINISTER In an effort to find a satisfactory and permanent solution to the problem of housebuilding on the Lake Pupuke watershed, and the safeguarding of the lake water the North Shore Water Board decided yesterday afternoon to approach the Minister of Health for a conference. IN a letter to the board the Minister said the view of the department was that building should and must be restricted on the shores of the lake if the water was to remain a safe source of supply. Mr. Stallworthy suggested that it was necessary that land owners who were prevented from using that land for building purposes should be suitably compensated; that such compensation should be paid by the people who used the water, and that the matter was one primarily for the Water Board and not for the department. “I am advised,” stated the Minister, “that adequate safeguards would be provided if a strip of land immediately adjoining the lake, say, two chains wide, were acquired by the Water Board, or by the joint local authorities concerned, and planted and fenced. “If this were done it is felt that there need not be prohibition of the erection of dwellings.” If, however, the building process was prosecuted with any great rapidity, continued Mr. Stallworthy, it would be necessary to provide a circular drain at the bottom of the building area. In view of the necessity of a definite conclusion to the matter, the Minister proposed that the four local bodies concerned should confer. He would be glad to meet their representatives. VIEWS OF THE BOROUGHS Commenting on the Minister’s letter, a copy of- which had been sent to each of the four bodies, the Takapuna Borough Council said it welcomed the intervention of .the Department with the view to a solution of the difficulties. A conference as proposed by the Minister would be particularly welcome. The council was of opinion that the principle of compensation should be extended to Takapuna’s loss of revenue if reserves in the catchment area were withdrawn from settlement. A strip of four chains wide, instead of two, would be more beneficial. The Northcote Borough Council felt that a wider outlook should be taken than tjiat suggested by the Health Department, both as regards comprehensiveness of the on which building should be restricted, and also on the question of responsibility for compensation. The Devonport Borough Council, said Mr. E. Aldridge, had two opinions. One section favoured the Wairau Stream proposal, and the other wished the supply to remain as at present. No comment had been made by the council on the Minister’s letter. Mr. Aldridge considered no useful purpose would be served by a conference of the four local bodies. They held divergent and at present unyielding views. t It would be better that the board should endeavour to meet the Minister in a round-table conference and the whole position reviewed. It w r as not likely, however, that the could be finalised during the term of the present board, which had only five weeks to run. The board agreed to Mr. Aldridge’s suggestion, and the Minister will be approached on his jiext visit to Auckland.