AVENUE ROAD RESERVE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 210, 14 December 1910, Page 7

AVENUE ROAD RESERVE

THE CONDITIONS OF LEASE. At the Borough Council meeting on Monday with reference to the Avenue Road Reserve the Reserve Committee recommended: That' authority be given to employ a surveyor to subdivide the portion of the racecourse reserve east of Eliot street and also to have a. lithographed plan prepared; that the K«serves Committee be authorised to put up for sale at public auction leases of the above sections for 21 years with perpetual right of renewal, subject to the following conditions:—(a) Upset rental per section, £5; (b) no compulsory building clauses, but no building of less value than £SOO to be ereced; all plans of buildings to be first approved by the council; (c) such other conditions as are usual to borough leases. That the council be requested to mate provision in the new loan proposals for the forming and metalling ot the roads in the above reserve and also for extending the sewers thereto.

Councillor Wilson moved that the clauses be referred back to the committee for further consideration. He said notice had been sent him that the Reserves Committee would meet on a cer-1 tain date to inspect the reserve, not to draw up a report, and knowing the reserve a» he did, he did not attend. He pointed out that subdivision as proposed would require dedication of part of the land to widen the roads, and this would necessitate a re-survey of the whole reserve, as no section could be leased ot less area than one rood. He suggested that the Minister be approached to have the streets exempted from the provisions of the Public Works Act. The upset rental of £5 per section was obviously unfair.. Land next the High School was more valuable than the land in the south-eastern corner, and no part was of as little value as £IOO per quar-ter-acre. The Committee, in nixing the rental, was tying the hands of the borough valuer, who could not well assess the annual value at a greater amount than that recommended. Further conditions should be inserted to exempt the Council from liability for subdivisional fencing to provide that the lots be put up singly and in numerical order, and that not more than one building be allowed on each section.. The motion was defeated, Councillors Wilson, Dockrill, Watkins and Browne voting for, and His Worship, and Councillors West, Clarke, Mannix. and Bcllringer against. i Eventualy the recommendations were amended as follows: —That the question of upfet rental be referred to the jborough valuer to fix the upset on; the basis of 4 per cent, on the capital value; no building to be of less value (han £3OO, and not more than one bulling with necessary outbuildings on one! section; that the Minister for I'liblic Works be asked to exempt the streets from the provisions of the Aet; Ithat the Council be not liable towards: the i cost of any dividing fences; and thai i the sections be put up in the order of I section numbers and in single lotj.