IMPROVE THE CITY

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1798, 22 August 1906, Page 21

IMPROVE THE CITY

PLANTING THE TOWN BELT. THE REVENUE PROBLEM. Some years ago the City Council arose in its wrath and ‘wiped out” the old and time-worn trees that used to grow in the southern half of Kent terrace reserve, or, in the language of tho **arly statutes, in the ‘ canal” reserve. Then rumours arose of very elaborate planting with this tree, and that and the other, the whole to be surrounded with an ornamental iron fence of great beauty—and cost. That fence must obsessed Councillors, for during ail the long interlude, though it has flitted intermittently across the stage, it has never materialised. Last Thursday night the iron fence received its quietus. It is to be presumed that the planting of the southern half of the reserve, from Pirie street to Buckle street, will now proceed. In reducing the cost of the fence from about £4OO to £lls—the estimated prioe of a post and seven-wire article—the Council has apparently saved the reserves funds over £250 in this direction; therefore it would seem that the reserves administration will have available this year for other purposes £250 more than it would have had under the previous arrangement. This sum is more than one-third of the total annual revenue of the Town Belt Leases and the Basin Reserve, as that revenue appears in the City Council’s balance-sheet of 1905. In fact, £250 is a substantial sum to our reserves, and if devoted to making a beginning with tree-planting (and not carpet-bedding) would go a long way. Is it too much to hope that the money which has been taken off the fence wilL find its way into trees? This retrenched fence in Kent terrace gives the Council a good opportunity to begin to make reparation to the Town Beit. The revenue from the Town Bqlt leases, about £540 in 1905, is not spent on the lands that yield it. Except the amount that goes to Newtown Park and Queen’s Park (if any), it does not even go to the Town Belt. The rented lands on the Belt, and the Belt generally, have been robbed for thirty odd years • and there is by no means a great deal to show for the money even in the places where it is supposed to have been spent. It was recently proposed in this paper to set apart a portion of the Town Belt, and to localise the revenue, so that it might accumulate for the purpose of fencing and planting the area set apart; successive areas to be fenced, and. planted as the accumulating funds allow. The Kent terrace saving could bo made the nucleus for starting this system on a much more substantial basis than we could previously have hoped for. Why not utilise the £250 to set free an equivalent amount of the Town Beit revenue—now diverted to other purposes —to be devoted to planting the Belt “on the instalment plan” ? Someone has .sapiently objected that as planting progresses, the rents, or the rented areas, will diminish. While everyone must be struck with the acumen of a critic who can see that trees are not grass, and that foliage will not bring in rent like pasture, it must be pointed out that an increase of trees and a corresponding decrease of pastoral revenue are just what the city wants. What Wellington requires, and badly, too, is a partly forested Town Belt, a scheme of parks and walks, and high-level drives; and unless some small start is made out of revenue, we shall have a naked amphitheatre of hills for all time. It is to the credit of the City Council’s Reserves Committee that it had succeeded in getting better rentals for Town Belt leases by putting them up for auction as they fall in, and in this way, we understand, the reserves revenue is now equal to about £BSO a year. This id another argument for giving the pastoral areas something back. In view of tho apparent saving in Kent terrace, the Reserves Committee simply- cannot allow the bald top of tihe Botanical Gardens, at Keibarne. to

remain in- its present neglected and wretched state. The running of the tramway to Brooklyn has served to draw dtill further attention to Hie bare condition of the gully below Ohiro road, where trees would be well sheltered and should make rapid growth. If, whether here or elsewhere, a plantation of well selected trees —not the common conifers—once got well under way, the public would become interested in the planting of the Town Belt, and subscriptions could no doubt be readily raided by the society which has undertaken voluntarily the_work of planting. Moreover, as time goes on, a further source of revenue will possibly come to the rescue in a substantial way—that is, the proposed “gate money” at the football and cricket grounds which the City Council has undertaken to construct. The great obstacle to the development of our magnificent reserves asset has been the difficulty of building up a revenue. Football, without being overtaxed, could easily yield the city far more than the scanty return which the pastoral leases bring in.