THRIVING SUBURBS.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 306, 26 December 1924, Page 7

THRIVING SUBURBS.

YEAR OF PROSPERITY. < i ■ACTIVITIES AROUND AUCKLAND. I i Signs of growing prosperity are cviI dent in all the suburban areas around , Auckland, and judging by reports from ' the local bodies concerned the year which ( lis just closing has been one of undoubted prosperity. Newmarket, which is nearest to the | heart of the city, has experienced a fair j j .amount of building, quite a number of |, 'shops having been erected during the J ( past 12 months in and around Broadway!, and out towards the Grep.t South \ I Road. The Bcrougb Council has an amI bitious roading scheme, the intention | j being to concrete every thoroughfare in I the borough, irrespective of the importance of any particular road. There I are .however, only about 54 miles of . streets in the whole area, so that the scheme is not beyond the pocket of the borough, which haa a rating value equal to some boroughs with about ten times as much mileage in streets. Newmarket is in a good financial position, and the ratepayers approved of a loan of £1S;OOO for the concreting of the roads. Secondary roads, of course, will not have such heavy material put down as will be laid on the main roads. It is , anticipated that the council's scheme will result in greatly reduced maintenance charges. There are about two dozen secondary streets, of which five , have already been concreted. The : I amount of work completed is 2.6 miles out of a total of 5.6 miles. Today the j capital value of Newmarket is 1A mil- '■ I lions and thp annual value about t £70,000. i In One Tree Hill district there has > been something like a record in the - number of houses built during the past year. The Road Board is pushing on 1 with roading and drainage, for a con- ',! siderable portion of this work has still '! to be done. •j The popularity of Mount Albert coni tinues unabated, the record of building . permits having been made months ago. I Some idea of the "rush" in this borough 1 may be gained from the fact that for ' the three weeks to December 17 no \ fewer than 46 building permits were , issued, the total value of premises to be 1 erected being £23,000. During the prej vious four weeks, 7-0 permits were granted, valued at £37,000. Out of these 116 permits, 06 were for houses, valued at £51,000. The chief problem in Mount Albert is drainage. There are somewhere between 4000 and 5000 ■houses in the borough, of which about 1 3000 have the advantage of drainage. Some 500 'bouses have septic tanks, and I the remainder, calculated at about 1500, , • have neither drainage nor septic tanks. , i About a third of the houses still waitI I ing for drainage are on clay land, where ' j septic tanks are prohibited. It is likely -1 that in the near future these 500 will 1 be connected -with the drainage system. j Mount Eden is another centre where more houses have been erected in con- » ■ siderable numbers. The past year has 5 j seen building activity chiefly in. the mat- ' j ter of new homes, whereas the previous r year's feature was the number of new c ' shops. Probably the chief concern of -, the borough at present is the decision 1 of the City Council not to proceed with ' the Mount Eden and Dominion Road tram extensions. On the north shore, the four boroughs '■ have had a good year, and all are thriving. Takapuna heads the list in popu--1 laritv, judging by the number of new houses erected, but the other boroughs - have also had their share. Both Taka- :>, puna and Devonport are pushing on , with better roads. By the time that i 1 accepted concreting tenders have 'been : -1 fulfilled, Devonport will have expended ' I its £120,000 on these much-needed roading improvements. This borough has • recently carried a poll for a destructor, r a fire brigade station, and water extenI ; sion. Of general interest on the north c I shore was the approval by Parliament II J last session of the formation of the '[ Lake Takapuna Board of Control. Bir- '., kenhead borough is busy on road fonmarl tion, while Korthcote is pushing on j' with its drainage scheme. k .