AREA FOR HOUSING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23320, 13 April 1939, Page 12

AREA FOR HOUSING

MARKET GARDENERS' PLIGHT LAND PROCLAIMED AT HUTT £by telegraph—own correspondent] WELLINGTON, Wednesday The right of market gardeners to continue using fertile land which has been utilised for periods of up to 60 years, in some cases having been converted from bush into tho finest produce-grow-ing areas of Now Zealand, is threatened by tho proclamation which the Government has placed on 600 acres of land in the Taita district, four miles from Lower Hutt. The existence in its present magnitude of an industry which has been a mainstay of the Hutt Valley and of the Wellington produce market since the early days of the Hutt, is endangered by the Government's desire to erect houses in the district.

In some cases, it was stated by market gardeners, to surrender possession of properties to give effect to the proclamation meant the relinquishment of tho results of decades of effort. There was further the less practical but none tho less important aspect of leaving what had been home for longer than it is the practice of many to occupy one property. Two years ago, in reply to representations from the Lower Hutt Borough Council, the Under-Secretary in Charge of Housing, Mr. Lee, wrote to the council as follows: — "In selecting lands for housing schemes tho Government has taken the question of exisiting market gardens into consideration. It is considered that it is in the interests of tho people of New Zealand that vegetables and other garden produce should be transported a little further two or three times a year than that human beings should be forced to travel the addition distance t\Vico daily."