"MONEY PAYMENT INSTEAD"

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 32, 8 February 1932, Page 8

"MONEY PAYMENT INSTEAD"

The City Council is proposing to the Municipal Association that the Municipal Corporations Act should be amended to enable local bodies to accept payment of. money from a property-owner when large areas are being subdivided. This is instead of requiring the owner to set aside part of the area as a reserve. There has been objection to this provision for a long time—in fact ever since it was introduced—on the ground that the reserves thus acquired may be too small to be of great use. Sometimes they will be so small as to be an, inconvenience and a nuisance. This argument should be accepted with reservations. We have a habit of regarding as useful only those reserves which are big enough for football

fields; but there is much to be said (especially by those who are not footballers) lor small squares and even "pocket-handkerchief" reserves where children may play, their elders may sit in the sun, and flowers may be grown. If the law calling for dedication of such smaller areas is to be amended something of value will be lost. At least this provision should be made: that the alternative money payment should not be lost in the general municipal fund. It should be set aside specifically for the provision of some other reserve. No doubt municipalities would be glad of little windfalls from subdivisions, but they are not entitled to them. If the land or the money is not for new reserves it should not be taken. In a special Empowering Act the New Plymouth Borough Council is authorised to accept-a money payment on these terms, and the proviso should apply in any general amendment of die law.