RAILWAY HOUSES

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 152, 30 June 1922, Page 8

RAILWAY HOUSES

VALUATIONS AT KAIWXRRA

DWELLINGS OR FACTORIES?

The consideration of » claim for £2587 compensation made by Alexander and John Cameron against the Railway Department in respect of land taken over by the Railway Department for the erection of houses at Kaiwarra for railway workers, was continued at the Supremo Court yesterday afternoon before Mr. Justice Reed and Messrs. A. H. Miles, assessor for the claimants, and Mi-. W. Ferguson, assessor for the Department.

Mr. T. C- A. Hislop appeared for the claimants, and Mr. P. S. K. Macassey for the Railway Department.

A prqperty opposite the Cameron estate, said Mr. Hislop, had been bought by the Education Board for £1100. In 1914 that particular property was valued at £650, in 1921 at £990,' an increase of 56. per cent., and phe price paid by the Education Department represented a further increase of 15 per cent. In 1914 the Cameron estate was valued at £1285, and upon the basis of the 56 per cent, increase alone the claimants were entitled to £1900. To that might fairly, bo added a, percentage corresponding to the percentage over and above the 1921 valuation paid by the Education Board' for its property. The prospective value of the land as a site for warehouses, factories, or dwellinghouses was also to be taken into consideration, and, counsel held, the Cameron estate was better land than that purchased by the Education Board, since less excavation would be required to put the property in building order. . .

Counsel then called expert evidence as to the value of the land.

Mr. Macassey, in opening the case for the Department, maintained that no private person or syndicate could have opened up the property profitably. The Railway Department, not being bound by the Public Works Act or the requirements of the City Council, was not required to build metal roads of specified standard width and formation. The cost to the Department of roading, excavation, and making of an approach, irrespective of commission, surveying, and engineering fees, was £2724 odd, but the cost to a private syndicate would be, for the same length of reading. £3943 odd.

The land, counsel held, was unsuitable for factory sites, for it was hilly, difficult of accees, and away from both the waterfront and from a railway siding. As foe the building of dwellinghouses, Kaiwarra was not favoured, and, apart from the erection of the forty-four railway houses, no dwelling- had been built in Kaiwarra for ton years. Apart from the purchase of land by the Education. Board, no evidence had been brought as to the selling value of the land., which was the true lest. The purchase price of the school site, said Mr. Macassey, should not have any strong bearing upon the case, as Cameron's land was , impossible as a,school site, and, as a matter of fact, the necessity for a school had been largely due to the fact that the Railway Department had put fortyfour families at Kaiwarra. The land bought by the Education Department was the only available site for i£s purpose, and the price was really created by the Railway Department, and a comparieon could not therefore1 be rightly made with the Cameron estate. Instead of going up, the Government valuation on the property was going down. •

Counsel then called evidence as to th» value of tha land in the opinion of his witnesses.

Further evidence is being heard to-day.