MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22102, 4 November 1933, Page 11

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS

AN AMENDING BILL • SOME OF THE PROVISIONS. (From Oub Parliamentary Reporter.) - WELLINGTON, November 3. The Municipal Corporations Bill, which was introduced by Governor-General’s Message and read a first time in the House of Representatives to-day, is substantially the same as the measure which Parliament considered, but did not pass, last _ session. During the recess further consideration has been given to some of the provisions which were then criticised and a few alterations, mostly of minor importance, have been made in the clauses in the Bill. / A small alteration has been made 'to the clause providing for the appointment of a deputy-mayor of a borough so as to make it clear that a deputy-mayor ceases to exercise his duties when a new mayor is elected at an extraordinary election. If it thinks fit a council may appoint one of its members to be deputy-mayor. With the consent of the mayor, or in the event of the mayor becoming incapable of acting without such consent, the deputymayor shall have all the authority of the mayor until the mayor resumes his duties or a new one is appointed. 1 v . It was provided in the original Bill that the -elections of borough councillors should be triennial after 1935, but under an amendment in the new Bill all future elections will be triennial. Various defects found in the clause providing for the appointment of standing or special committees by borough ■ councils have been remedied. This provision was invoked for the purpose of setting up the Committee of Management which had control of Napier after the Hawke’s Bay earthquake. The appointment and functioning of that committee revealed many weaknesses in the relative clauses, and opportunity has been taken to amend them. In addition, the sections dealing with the appointment of joint committees have been reframed, as they were found in their existing form to be unworkable. The clause setting out the procedure to be adopted by a- borough council in passing a special order has been altered sp as to reduce to four the number of advertisements required to be published between two meetings of the council at which- a special order is made. An alteration has been made to the clause empowering borough councils to declare private streets or right-of-ways to be public streets. A borough . council is given power by special order to declare any private street to be a public street, and thus allow the council to_ maintain it in a proper state of repair. A council is authorised to declare any private street or any right-of-way to be a public street, but it cannot do this until the street or right-of-way is properly formed by the adjoining property owners. Every private street and right-of-way so declared shall become a street vested in a corporation. A slight amendment has been made to the clause dealing with building line restrictions. The Bill provides that the owner of any land affected by the by-laws fixing the building line may at liny time dedicate to the corporation for street purposes the whole of his interest in any part of the land on which the re-erec-tion of buildings is forbidden by operation of, the by-law. The council shall accept such dedication, but it may refuse to accept it unless and until it is satisfied that on the remainder of the land substantial building or rebuilding operations have been undertaken since the com- _ ing into force of the by-law. The original Bill provided that a borough council, having established electric light works, might supply electricity to a person residing beyond the borough only with the consent of the local author- ■ ity of the district in which the supply was given, and of the electric power board within whose supply the area district or any part of was situated. There was some, .opposition to the requirement for the consent of the electric power board, and this latter part ot the provision has now been withdrawn. The original Bill provided that the consent of a borough council, must be obtained before any subdivision of land within the borough may be made. Words have been added to this provision to make it clear that a borough council may require provision to be made for the construction of streets or the making of .reserves even though the provision tor these was not contained in the original plan of the subdivision as submitted for aP ln° V last year’s Bill borough councils were given additional powers to control hoardings and other display signs and advertisements. These additional powers were objected to, and subsequently negotiations were started between the Principal interested parties. These negotiations are still in prorress, and in the meantime no additions to the present law on this subject are included in the Bill. An addition is made to the eleventh schedule of the Bill to place beyond doubt the powers of a boroueh council to secure the demolition of ruinous buildings.