HARBOUR BOARDS AND COUNTY COUNCILS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue 7376, 31 January 1902, Page 4

HARBOUR BOARDS AND COUNTY COUNCILS.

In view of the controversy now going j on at Opuuake in reference to the desira- j bility of getting a bill through to form a j harbour board or relying upon the new j County Council taking steps to get the ; Council gazetted a Harbour Board, a ; correspondent sends us the following, ; which should interest the ratepayers effected : — : The Counties Acts provides, " That if the Counfcil erects or constructs any I quays, docks, piers, or harbour works of 1 any kind, it shall only do so in accord- • ance with and subject to the provisions of The Harbour Act." Further, " In any place where there is no Harbour Board | the Governor, on the request of the council of any county bordering on any i estuary or arm of the sea .... may i by Order-in-Councii gazetted declare that such council . . • shall, from a date to be fixed in such order, exercise all the powers of a Harbor Board within such, limits of such estuary or arm aforesaid as the Governor may define for that purpose. From and after the date of any such order, the County Council . . . aforesaid shall be deemed to be a Harbor Board as if they had been constituted by special Act. And again : " For the purpose of constructing any wharves or jetties, the Council may, where there is no Harbor Board, or where the Council has been appointed a Harbor Board, borrow money by way of special loan in the manner provided by this Act. Any Council appointed a Harbor Board under the provisions of ■ this Act may, by special order, declare and define the part of the county that will be specially benefitted by any harbor works, and may levy a special rate in such district for the constructing and maintaining of harbor works, but no such rate shall be levied save by consent of the ratepayers as provided, in case of separate rates, and no such rate shall exceed in any one year fths of a penny in the £." Now for the Harbor Acts, which state — " Wo land shall be reclaimed from the sea or in any harbor, and no graving dock, dock, or breakwater shall be constructed in any harbor or in the sea except under the authority of a special Act, and the applicants for such special Act shall, three months at least before the session of the General Assembly . . . deposit at the office of the Marine Department a plan . . . ." Further, "In any harbour where no Harbour Board is in existence the Governor-in Council may authorise any local governing body or any person to construct harbor works other than the reclamation of land from the sea or any harbour, or the construction of any graving dock or breakwater in any harbour or in the sea." Our correspondent adds that he docs not think there is any necessity for comment, except that it is very clear even after a County Council has been gazetted a Harbour Board its powers are very limited.