MUNICIPAL SITE-BUYING

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 40, 16 August 1919, Page 4

MUNICIPAL SITE-BUYING

The Mayor has initiated an. ambitious scheme of tramway-extension and housing by purchasing two blocks of land—a 12-acre block on the Kelburn side of Northland and a 125-acre block west of the hills, towards WiltonBush. _, It seems that the smaller area, beside giving sites for houses, will enable . a tramway to grade up to the Northland high level, whence tho tramway will ultimately sweep down the western incline to the 125-acre block, and onward to link up with the Wadestown tramway. For many years it has been obvious that the land between Wadestown and Karori must be served By a tramway, either by a NorthlandWadestown circuit as now proposed, or by means of a tunnel. In buying up land in advance, the Mayor is of course following a sound principle; whether his application of it is sound depends on the ratio of the price, and the cost of giving access, to the number of housing allotments that the subdivision will yield. At £75 an acre the land west of the hills, sloping down towards Wilton's Bush, looks like good buying if it is not too steep. In any case, a new suburb is destined to arise on these fields now devoted to cows and mushrooms, and if the City Council can give it a hygienic and artistic beginning without economic sacrifice, town-planning in Wellington will at once assume practical sEape.