THE H.B. TRIBUNE THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1929 BOARD AND COUNCIL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 283, 14 November 1929, Page 6

THE H.B. TRIBUNE THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1929 BOARD AND COUNCIL

Last week we had something to say in respect to the controversy that has arisen between the Napier Harbour Board and the Napier Borough Council regarding the reclamation for residential purposes of a further 92 acres of the Board’s endowment adjoining the borough. It was then made fairly plain that the complaint of bad faith which the Council laid against the Board’s chairman was altogether groundless. There does not now appear to be much difficulty in showing that the boot was really on the other leg. The matter was carried a step further forward yesterday when the Board received a deputation from the Council commissioned to put forward the Council’s arguments in favour of proceeding at once with the reclamation work on the 92acre block. A full report of the proceedings appears on another page of this issue and is well worth careful reading by those who really wish to get at the true inwardness of the differences that have arisen. To understand this fully it is necessary to go back a little in the way of restating the position before the Board took up its present stand. The Board, with the earnest and continual solicitation of the Council as a spur, has for a long time been engaged upon the reclamation of another block of some 28 acres, which the Council represented as being urgently required, as an expansion of the Borough’s residential area. The work on this area has proceeded steadily, and many months ago—some timq, we understand, in the first half of last year—the Board submitted to the Council for its necessary approval a scheme for its subdivision, with a request for information as to what the Council’s requirements would be with regard to reading, sewerage, and the like. In spite of all the Council had had to say about the urgency of having this block subdivided and put upon the market for leasing, it was in vain that the Board pressed for approval of its plans and for final specification of the Council’s quirementsMeanwhile, however, tho Council contended that still further room for residential extension of the borough was required and negotiations were entered into for the reclamation of the 92-acrq block,

as a joint undertaking. The main motive for entertaining this proposal was that, though the Board was quite satisfied a much cheaper dewatering scheme would be completely effective, the Council was bent on one which necessitated a lot of costly filling up and raising of levels. As the result of these negotiations some broad understanding was reached between the two bodies as to the general lines upon which the work would be jointly undertaken, but details still remained to be filled in. Under the arrangement outlined the Council was to find the money, up to a certain limit, for carrying out the purely reclamation part of the undertaking, this money to be gradually recouped to it, with interest, out of the rents to be derived from the area. All the other essentials to making the area fit for occupation were to be done at the expense of the Board. Up till this time, July last, the Board was still without a final reply from the Council with respect to the latter’s requirements regarding the 28-acre block, the reclamation of which was then almost completed. It was, indeed, only under pressure that tin Council eventually supplied this long-sought information early last month. It was then found these requirements were such that the Board would be compelled to an expenditure very far in excess of the estimated cost of making this 28-acre block ready for the market. It was then, too, that the Board began to realise that it was about time to call a halt and review the situation. It became at once apparent that with regard to the 28-acre block tho Council was out to exploit the Board to the uttermost for the benefit of the borough, and there was no reason for thinking that, if placed in a position to do so, it would not pursue the same course with respect to the bigger area. The very natural deduction to be drawn was that the' Council had been manoeuvring to get the Board irrevocably committed to the 92acre scheme before disclosing its hand with regard to its costly reading and other requirements.

It was under thesa circumstances, so far as we have been able to gather them, that the Board at its meeting last month, realising its narrow escape from commitment to a hopelessly losing proposition, resolved to postpone the reclamation of the 92-acre block and get on with something else that would be of assured benefit to the whole big district which it represents and not merely to the borough of Napier. This decision, it will be seen, has had the effect, to some extent at least, of bringing the Council to understand that the Napier Harbour Board does not exist for the sole purpose of promoting Napier interests at the expense of ths rest of the harbour district.