The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST” WEDNESDAY, JULY 5, 1939. Wellington Outgrows Itself

Northern Advocate, 5 July 1939, Page 6

The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST”

WEDNESDAY, JULY 5, 1939. Wellington Outgrows Itself

Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper

A LITTLE diplomacy and tact, in discussing the proposals beforehand with those affected, would probably have averted the hostility and resentment roused by the Government’s decision to transfer market gardens from the Hutt Valley to the neighbourhood of Ohau, near Levin, in order to make room for expansion of State housing schemes in the Hutt Valley. Even now there is no reason why the difficulties should not be smoothed aside, for actually there is no doubt, as the Prime Minister points out, that closer settlement in the Ohau district should ultimately be to the benefit of the existing property owners. More important to the Dominion as a whole is the question of what this somewhat grandiose scheme is going to cost. Substantial compensation will no doubt have to be paid to the affected property owners in both districts, and by all ordinary standards of accountancy it would be impossible to build houses on such costly sections and let them at anythmg approaching a reasonable rental. It has yet to be demonstrated, too, whether the new land on which the market gardeners are to be planted will be as suitable for their purposes as the fertile sheltered flats in the Hutt Valley. At Ohau the soil is rich, but it is exposed to violent westerly winds, bringing salt spray from the Tasman. Only practical experience quite distinct from surmise and theory, will show whether market gardening can be made profitable there. Normally it would be supposed that if the land and conditions were suitable, there would already be a flourishing gardening industry in the locality, but this is not the case. The whole controversy, however, is of interest as a demonstration of the extraordinary progress in the Hutt Valley in recent years. There, where the first site of Wellington was planned, and then abandoned, has occurred the most vigorous expansion seen anywhere in New Zealand in the past decade. Great factories have sprung up on what were formerly suburban farmlets, and closer settlement has pushed further and further up the valley, while Petone and Lower Hutt have arrived in status as towns of growing importance in their own right. Handicapped as Wellington is by insufficient room for expansion, there is no doubt that the time will come when the Hutt Valley will have a greater population than the city itself. Already the Hjitt Valley has busy shopping centres, theatres, and a social and urban life of its own. The process must continue, for, except near Porirua, there is no other space for expansion. But it might have been wiser to allow it to occur naturally instead of arbitrarily transplanting the hatless market gardeners from one side of the Tararuas to the other.