THE REBUILDING OF NAPIER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21264, 19 February 1931, Page 5

THE REBUILDING OF NAPIER.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —It is very easy to say “ We are going to rebuild a beautiful city; we will rise out of the ashes.’' Shall we? Many years ago I wrote an article on this very question. It was the result of a dream. We are more or less all dreamers,, and when one’s dreams come true it makes one pause and think. Thirty-two years ago T saw in a dream Napier and Hastings wiped off the map by a tidal wave. I wrote to the papers a description of this dream, and out of the disaster I saw a beautiful city built from the Havelock Hills to the Kidnappers, with a harbour second to none in New Zealand—a beautiful city which was planned out on the most modern plans. In fact, when I visited Brighton, in England, I saw the picture again, minus the wonderful background we have at the Grange. Now, I appeal to the vested interests in Napier to pause and think. “Vested interests!” What are they worth to-day? The city is a ruin. Its drainage was never what it might have been. The city should never have been built on its present site. There is no room for expansion, unless swamps are filled in and Nature is interfered with. The rivers will crush Napier eventually. One cannot defy Nature, and the rivers will find their true outlets. One may divert them for a time, but the storms of the ocean will drive them back, and the city will be inundated. This question has always been a bitter fight. I personally have opposed the diverting of these rivers for 30 years. I know the result of banking. Our rivers are making north, and, had the hand of man left them alone, Nature would have given us the most wonderful land in the world. The Heretaunga Plains should

never have been anything but a garden. Hastings should have been built on the Havelock Hills.

Now, the suggestion I have to make is that the Government purchase, say, 5000 acres of the frontage to the sea from Haumoaua to Clifton. This can be acquired for about £3O an acre, full value. Let the Government give this to the Napier City free for a term —say, 1000 years—free of interest, the tenants to have no right to dispose of the land and to have no vested interest in it except the right to occupy for all time. The only asset to the occupier would Be his improvements, and, should he desire to leave, the Government would purchase the improvements at a fair valuation. This, Sir, would stop false land values and future generations would bless Mr George Forbes if he is game to do it. Personally, I would not lend one shilling (had I £1,000,000) to rebuild on the values which are now owing on the land that once was Napier. No one loves Napier more than I do, but I do not want my grandchildren to say that I left them on a spit of sand, when I had the opportunity to build a city on the hills. Let me give you an instance. I am writing this on a section which cost (or there is owing on it) £IO,OOO. There are four mortgages. The ground rent is at present £OOO per annum, plus rates and other charges. The frontage is 40- feet. Supposing I build again at a cost of £BOOO, making a total of £IB,OOO on which to pay overhead. _ The thing is impossible; it is wicked. I would only be a working bullock for the banks for the rest of my life. Picture the city on the hills —my land free for a start, only rates, a charge for modern conveniences, and all I have to find would be the £BOOO for building. Put this side of the picture to London financiers and they would find us all the money we should require for buildings. Ask them to lend on the present site, plus the existing liabilities, and they will turn us down, and rightly so. I know the position will hit many very hard, but their values were never there, being built up simply by Government expenditure. Even had the earthquake not happened, many second, third, and fourth mortgages would have had to be written off, and I know of many first mortgages that would also have to be reduced. We must take our medicine. The opportunity has come. There is a time in the affairs of man which, if taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. . I am with the Napier people, sink or swim, but I do not want to see them drown because a few vested interests may have to crumble. The man who shirks his job in this big fight is a shirker, and must find his level; let him wallow in his own dirt. I am looking into the future; the past is dead. What a city we could build! and leave the dear old rums for our tourists to visit and for our childrens children to learn and appreciate the great work the Master Man can do when He makes us wake up to our mode oi living. —I am, etc., Verb Sap. Dalton street, Napier, February 15.