WESTLAND WASTE LANDS BOARD.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1114, 22 February 1872, Page 2

WESTLAND WASTE LANDS BOARD.

•.• . '•".■■ I-". ♦ ■ -■■••'■ A sitting of the Waste Lands Board was held on Tuesday, at the Land Office, Hokitika. Present: — The Chief Commissioner, Messrs Hoos, Lahman, Evans, and the Receiver of Land-Revenuei Mr Hawkins applied, for Mr .W^H. Harrison, fo have" put' up to auction the section of land,.cpmprising 7£^^ aores^uDoii which Mr Harrison had built a house, and which the Board had at a'previous sitting classed as suburban land instead of town land. . ; , .--.. The Chief Commissioner Baid that there was no obstacle riowto^xiomplying with the application, but' a valuation of the improvements must be made before the land be put up to auction. / '.?'?:. Some discussion ensued; as to whether the valuation. for improvements should extend over the whole area, or should.be , limited to the portion of the section on. wjiich improvements were actifaUy mddW It was also . questioned '■ whether* John Simpson's prior application to purchase' half an acre of the same section, as town '. land, precluded the' Board from granting the application of Mr Harrison in r fia ' entirety.Ultimately the Board decide'd'thaf the valuation should" apply, to the whole section, and that Simpson's application had lapsed. Tlie Board ordered that'the^ section be put up for sale by auction,' .the valuations for improvements to be made by . Mr Frew, County Engineer, and Mr Browne, District Surveyor. . : : Jr : Mrßarff applied that a block of land- • situated at Greenstone should be temporarily reserved, with the view of its- be* coming a site, for a township; . The Board directed that the land referred to be set aside as a reserve, as applied for. '. ■.■•■, W. J. " Coates applied, througn Mr Spence, to purchase 30 acres of rura,l fond, on the Marsden road, :,■ • "i Mr Learmonth appeared to oppose the application on behalf of Mr Macfarlane. : ; The application of Mr Coates was in connection with a matter which had been before the Board before, and which had >* r< become further complicated by a decision of the Board, whereby the land required by Mr Coa+es had been reserved with other land, on the application of Mr Macfarlane, for pa^men^Jfor^public works. The facts, so fM>&iUe Times reporter could understand them, are s these :— Mr Coates had, in the first instance^ applied to purchase 30 acres of land .with* a frontage to the Marsden road, as he had discovered it was io be ! laid out.l. When the application reached the Land Office, the officers of- the department' had' no knowledge that the line of road wag tp bjj altered, and, l\fr Ooates' applicatiqn w^f marked and set out on the other side of the Omotumotu Creek, the road being on that side.' The purchase was made and the money paid before the error was discovered. Subsequently;, .on ; the, application of Mr Macfarlane, the iand-rra portion of whiph Mr Qoates hq.d applied, for— was. rejjepved ag y?p h>ve ; ' ihetorg stated, The Board expressed a desire to set the matter right, and adjourned the hearing of the applicationuiitd next sitting, with the view of ascertaining whether- M^ % Matfarlanp would : a^ift 41s position '^q enable Mr Goates to purchase land on tfie new line of road, and in the event of Mr Macfarlane ref usingto shift, it was ordered that the .opinion of Sir Tjpaveipg be takeii .'< on the question whetlier the Board can cancel its decision as to the land reserved in paymeut f 01? public works. „ . - . In the matter of tfie application of the Borough Council of Greyniouth to have two blocks of sections in that town reserved as an endowment for the Municipality, the Board decided that the application couki not be entertaiued.