The Daily News. FRIDAY, MARCH 10. BUILDING AREAS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 258, 10 March 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, MARCH 10. BUILDING AREAS.

A stranger to New Zealand would be quick to notice the vast areas of Unoccupied or only partially used lands the country possesses, and moving into any of the cities or large towns would be equally struck with the "pocket-hand-kerchief" lots that are so frequently considered large enough for a family home to rest, on. Local bodies are not as a rule greatly concerned with the health of the people who elect them, and most municipal building laws are enactions easily disobeyed. The Auckland Herald has just called attention to the fact that the Health Department has stepped in to do the work of the Waitemata County Council in the matter of denning the size of building allotments. The Council proposed to fix the minimum area at onesixth of an acre, but happily the Health Officer intervened, and the minimum area is still to be one-quarter of an acre. The intolerable stuffiness of many urban and suburban residential quarters in New Zealand is a disgrace to the public bodies, and we believe we are right in saying that most local bodies, until they are instructed by experts, have no thought about hygiene and no notion about public health. Overcrowding to the average city father or t6wn councillor represents civic advance, and it seems impossible up to now to induce public bodies to undertake a vigorous crusade against overcrowding, jerry-building, and the like. Auckland itself is the worst example in New Zealand of inconveniences that might be removed by the determination of local bodies. The city is, and has been for many years, appallingly dirty; huge areas of suburban land have been covered by jerry buildings, and in all these areas sanitation is more or less absent. The public services are dirty, and the "get-rich-quick" policy dominates the minds of many citizens. Presumably, although the Health Department has power to insist that the people shall have more air space, it cannot indicate an unsewered area and say to its owners, "You must advance with the times." In these matters it is a little late in the day to begin, for in Wellington, for instance, even in suburban areas two, three and often four miles from the General Post Office there are building "sites" cut up into sixteenths of acres. During the pernicious boom the microbe of speculation attacked all classes, and local bodies absolutely made no attempt to prevent the fester of overcrowding, and cheerfully allowed speculators to cumber the earth with the vilest of rubbish. Even if blind local bodies have been succeeded by those having sight, it will he difficult for them to undo the mischief, and posterity will have to make plans for the destruction of pestilent areas in order that increasing populations may have air to breathe. The amazing feature of the civic and semi-civic supinencss is that it is possible, both in Auckland and Wellington, to find i a bunch of small dwellings huddled on ! to the tiniest possible speck of land and' surrounded by unoccupied areas. Taxation on the unimproved value of land was hailed by many folk as a brilliant way to deal with the absentee landowner and the person who was "waiting for a rise." But while local bodies slept—and many are still slumbering sweetly—own-1 ers of land so taxed quite naturally piled all the reproductive buildings possible on the land. The "get-rich-quick" folkknowing nothing and caring nothing about hygiene, have been allowed to dominate the situation, and,, as far as existing warrens are concerned, it seems unlikely that even a Health Department will order their destruction or improvement unless pestilences sweep through them and make it necessary. If local bodies show dispositions to lower the minimum allowable for dwelling sites, it is to be desired that the Health Department will step in every time. If we had a statesman in New Zealand who believed that the health of the race absolutely depended on its homo quarters, he would fight for a State law defining the minimum area on which a dwelling might be built in any part of New Zealand. A quarter-acre section is small enough in any residential area, and too small where land is readily available. Wellington is one of the finest examples of overcrowding and unheeded municipal laws the Dominion has, and it has always been the excuse of the authorities that "no land is available." As a matter of fact, there are hundreds of acres of land suitable for dwellings within half-an-hour's car ride of the capita! city, but the disposition of half the city humanity to live as near a destructor or an oyster saloon as possible makes them prefer to dwell in reeking quarters. But the greatest evil during the last ten years—a decade that has largely increased the city populations—is that the evils of an overcrowded town or city are reproduced without let or hindrance in the suburbs. We know, of course, that our statesmen arc too busy with Imperial matters at present to go into the question of dwelling-site areas and the jreneral Dominion minimum that should be adopted. Countries which have been overcrowded in patches for centuries are to-day showing a more sincere disposition to mitigate the evil than are the authorities of New Zealand cities and lar«j;e towns. The fictitious "value - ' of residential lands is the chief reason for the creation of airless slums, the contempt of building by-law-!, and the supineness

of civic bodies. With the exception of South Africa, urban and suburban lands in most of the cit'es and towns of New Zealand are dearer than those of any other country, and the rents are higher. If the resident of t hoii'-e within the jurisdiction of a New Zealand local body possessed the advantages he might well expect for the price paid, perhaps he would pardon the exorbitant charges. But, in a great number of cases, he is "cribbed, cabin'd and confined" with the condonancc of local bodies in trumpery habitations planted on "handkerchief" lots. He may yet voice his feelings about the attitude of speculators and their aiders and abettors, the local bodies.