SUBDIVISON OF LAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 208, 3 September 1929, Page 17

SUBDIVISON OF LAND.

• PROPERTY AT TAKAPUNA. V OWNER AND COUNCIL AT LAW COMMISSION'S DECISION RESERVED Evidence in the case in which D. R. C. Mowbray appealed against tlie decision of the Takapuna Borough Council to disapprove of a plan for the subdivision of land near Lake Pupuke, was concluded yesterday before the commission consisting of Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M. (chairman), and Messrs. N. A. Duthie and A. Greville Walker, assessors. Mr. McVeagh appeared for Mowbray and Mr. Gould for the municipal authority. Archibald Slinger, engineer to the Takapuna Borough Council, gave the area of the lake as 260 acres, the total catchment area being 456 acres. At the lakeside was a catchment area of 196 acres, suitable for subdivision into 000 sections if a lakeside road were provided. "Sections round the lakeside, cannot be subdivided without considerable roading," Baid witness. In 1927, when the council considered the plan from a townplanning angle, in - conjunction with a plan of the borough, prepared in 1925, it was decided that a road was necessary somewhere. The proposed subdivision was considered as part of a whole scheme and not as an isolated block. The road would be an important part of the scheme of communication in the borough. To a question from the chairman of the commission, witness said that a complete road could not be considered until an independent water supply was adopted. To Mr. Gould witness gave details of properties with sea frontages where both reading and reserves had been required by the council before the plans were approved. The Mayor of Takapuna, Mr. J. Williamson, said that at the end of 1925 the borough engineer had prepared a townplanning map, making provision for a lakeside road. At that time witness had recommended that a reserve all round the lake should be provided for and urged the immediate adoption of the plan. The plan, which was prepared with town-planning principles in mind, Was intended to apply to future subdivision in the borough. "The road would be advantageous to anpellant as part of the plan," declared witness. "The present lake water supply is inadequate and it is intended to bring into operation the town-planning scheme contained in the engineer's plan, 011 the abandonment of the lake water supply." In reply to Mr. McVeagh, witness said that he had no idea when such a change would be made. Arthur Tennyson Griffiths, engineer to the Devonport Borough Council, stated that the Borough of Devonport had adopted the same system of taking adjacent roads and reserves in the cases of waterfront subdivisions. Keeping in view, the town-planning map, he would not approve appellant's own plan for the subdivision of the land. After a brief address by counsel the chairman of the commission stated that the decision of the commission would be delivered at a later date.