BUILDING AREAS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 49, 27 February 1923, Page 8

BUILDING AREAS

A COMPLAINT FROM MIRAMAR.

"A Lover of Fresh Air" writes to the editor of the "Evening Post" as follows :—

"It is said that the City Council is allowing land to be cut up into small areas in Seatoun and Miramar; if this is so, then it is good-bye to the pride of those who now live here, and have always prided themselves that small building lots would never be allowed, preventing a repetition of what occurred at Kilbirnie an^ Lyall Bay, both of which have been utterly spoiled and will never make garden suburbs. Before the amalgamation of this place with the city, the Miramar Borough Council had a wise bylaw, which forbade any section for a dwelling having a leas frontage than forty feet. Can you tell me if the city authorities have power to override that -wise precaution? If they have, then it is good-bye to all our hopes and ambitions. There is (or was) a society called the 'Seatoun and Bays Beautifying and Progress Society'—rather a high-sounding title. Surely the members must know of this attempt to wreck our ambitions. I trust that they will wake up and try to stop this attempt to set aside the bylaw mentioned above."

The City Solicitor states, in answer to the correspondent, that the bylaw referred to by the correspondent is still in force. Section 368 of the Municipal Corporations Act provides that "all bylaws in force in any of the several boroughs at the time of the union of any boroughs which are applicable to the altered circumstances shall become bylaws of the united borough." Bylaw No. 76 (a) (1913) of the Miramar Borough Council reads to the effect that every parcel of land for dwelling purposes shall have an area of not less than one-eighth of an acre and a, frontage of not less than 40 feet to some street; or an area of not less than a-quarter of an acre and a frontage of not less than 20 feet to some street. The City Council still has in force the bylaws of the various boroughs that have amalgamated with the city, except in a few instances in which alterations have had to be made.