TAKAPUNA ROADS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 30, 4 February 1916, Page 2

TAKAPUNA ROADS.

THE COUHTRYS LEGACY TO THE BOROUGH. THE CHAIRMAN'S REPLY TO THE MAYOR. " 'Twas ever thus," said Mr. A. 41. Laiflg, the chairman of the Waitemata County Council, when asked by a " Star" reporter to-day if he had any remarks to make in reply to the contention of the Mayor of Ta'kapuna that the Waitemata County Council had allowed land speculators at Takapuna to fleece the ratepayers. " The offspring I is ever prone to criticise the parent." he said. " Mr. Blomfield's grievance seems to be that the Coun'.y Council did not hand over to the Borough Coxincil a finished city replete with all modern conveniences. I would like to point out to Mr. Blomfield that build-1 ing cities is not one of the functions of ] a County Council, which is, virtually, a rural body, and its duties are of a primary nature. If subdivisions were badly made, or roads wrongly located, there j would be blame attachable to the County I Council, because the Borough Council would have to undo something that bad been done before the improvement of the district could proceed. That all the primary work of subdivision at Takapuna has been well done is practically admitted by Mr. Blomfield, as his only complaint is that not enough had been done. The question of what class roads land syndicates cutting up property should be required to make is a very difficult one, and one which the County Council has spent a great deal of time in considering. The Council has always recognised that the speculating land syndicate has its uses in bringing unoccupied I lande into profitable occupation, causing J improvement in values, which increase I the county revenue, and the problem has j been to get as much as possible done in j the matter of roading without putting I the screw too tightly, and thus checking J the operations of the land syndicates. i Considering the phenomenal growth of Takapuna recently, is it extraordinary that large sums of money require to he I expended on the roads, to provide for the requirements of the ever-increasing population? Has it not been so in every I suburb of Auckland? But then, increasI ing population and closer settlement j mean increased revenue to the local J body, and I will undertake to say that had the administration of Takapuna affairs remained with the Connty Council, improvements would have been made to the new roads, with the money I collected from properties adjoining them, jas the necessity arose, and that without j going in for a ioQ.OOO loan for street I improvement. Of course, if all the roads at Takapuna are to be made in the ridiculously extravagant manner in which I a small street with no houses fronting it J has recently been constructed at Hall's Corner. I can quite understand Mr Blom--1 field's concern regarding his finances I especially when the cost of the borough j administration is 17 per cent of the i Rcneral rates, as is shown in last year's balance-sheet."