COMPULSORY LAND DEDICATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13895, 6 May 1907, Page 4

COMPULSORY LAND DEDICATION.

A little difficulty with which tho Mornington Borough Council finds itself faced lias drawn attention to the subject of land dedication for road purposes, prominence to which is ordinarily confined, for the most part, to the enthralling pages of the Public Work? Act. An unwelcome dedication has apparently confronted the Council in question with a. somewhat largo claim for compensation, which it naturally does not desire to pay if it can avoid so doing, and an appeal in to bo made to the Minister of Public Works in the matter. It is interesting and of some importance to observe what the provisions of the.Public Works Act actually are as bearing on this particular subject. Section 117 of the Act of 1905 lays down that " where land having a frontage to an existing road or street of a less width than sixty-six feet is subdivided into allotments for the purpose of sale the owner shall set back the frontage of the land to a distance of at least thirty-three feet from the centre-lino of the road or street, and shall dedicate as a public road or street the strip of land between the frontageline so set back and the frontage-lino as previously existing, and the land so dedicated shall form part of such existing road or street." The same section makes provision for payment of compensation by the local authority to the owner of land so dedicated, and also contains tho important stipulation that the clause making dedication necessary shall be inoperative in cases where tho local authority having control of the road or street that is lew than the required width passes a special resolution to that effect and tiii« receives the. approval of the Uovenior-in-Council. Clearly, it is incorrect to state that where a street is under a certain width an owner of property fronting it may call on the local authority to pass a resolution to the eltcct that it will i never be widened, and clearly the I owner of such property wlieu sub-

dividing it must comply with tho seetion of the Act above quoted unless the local authority has availed itself of tho proviso in regard to the passing of a resolution which will mean that tho street will remain at its original width. It should be remembered, however, that oven should the local authority pass such a resolution and secure its approval by the Governor-in-Couneil, land of which the dedication may have been considered unnecessary and undesirable may, should circumstances necessitate it, be taken by it subsequently under the- powers conferred by the Public Works Act. Ifc is evident tl;.it the section of the Acb with reference to l-.md dedication may sometimes prove embarrassing to a local authority. It is conceivable that Borough Councils might have to pay large sums ior compensation in cases where they were unable to convince the (lOvcrnor-in-Council that a street of the widtli of sixty-six feet was not necessary, and the Minister of Public Works has a greater reputation for insistence on the principle of the wide street than for recognition of the fact that sometimes local conditions very much alter' cases. Were section 117 of the Public Works Act rigorously enforced a borough road might readily assume a curiously irregular appearance, and: although there is the swing graco of the power" of the local authority to take land under the Public Works Act, the exercise of that is not all plain failing, and, of course, it is expensive. The man who has laud fronting a. narrow road nnd sells portion of it is, however, not generally called upon to dedicate any of it to the borough if ho can claim to have no definite scheme of subdivision in view, although it is obvious that by successive operations he may eventually cany out what amounts to a complete scheme of subdivision without having complied with section 117 of tho Act. All these things point to advantage to the subdivider and disadvantage to the local authority. We are quite aware that several unsuccessful attempts have been made to persuade the Government to relax the provisions of this section. The, principle embodied therein cannot be considered objectionable at all in the caso of the formation of a township wnere the necessity for new streets is involved, but the anomaly of its application in the ease of the subdivision of a quarter-acre section into two allotments has been -made manifest. The position of the local authority is not greatly improved by the fact that last year's amendment of the Act makes provision that in the assessment of compensation for land dedicated for a road any consequent betterment of the property shall be considered. In the case occupying the attention of tho Monii inglon Council we believe it may fairly be assumed that there is no necessity that the road in question should bo widened and that there is not likely to be any. If the Council had safeguarded itself by the pass-age of a special resolution to that effect and secured the approval of the Governor-iu-Council thereto wo presume it would not be in the present difficulty. However, now that the land has been dedicated it is somewhat late, to consider that course. Perhaps tho Mayor of 31ornington and , Mr Arnold will bo able to put matters before the Minister of Public Works in such a way that ho will recognise that it is a case, as it seems to us to be, where relief should be given the local authority. Reference to the Gazette shows that last year quite a number of roads in the colony were exempted from the provisions of section 117 of the Public Works Act subsequent to tho passing of a special resolution bi the local authority, and a marked majority of these were in tho north. An instance in this province was in the caso of the roads in the Totara Estate.