GLASGOW STREET

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22504, 23 February 1935, Page 11

GLASGOW STREET

TO THE EDITOR Sir, —Your correspondent who, no doubt, rightly signs his letter “ Interested ” in yesterday’s Daily Times, onuts to give some “ interesting ” information as to • the position of the present tenants in Glasgow street, if and when the ratepayers shall have swept the present houses away and others of a more modern and expensive type have been erected. What rent will then be demanded for the houses? Will it be possible, as it is to-day, to rent a cottage in such a convenient locality for 13s per week? If not, the poorer, tenants will have to go much further afield and still put up with inferior conditions. “ Interested ” thinks a valid reason for widening this street is that it is not wide enough to allow of the manoeuvring of a car, but this is hardly likely to appeal to'people of a philanthropic turn of mind anxious to abolish bad housing conditions. Glasgow street has no through traffic. The street extends only from Cargill road to Macandrew road, and is, as one city councillor remarked, “a butcher’s and baker’s cart street,” The actual roadway is ample for the traffic, being, in fact, almost as wide as the roadway in some of the best residential streets. The narrowness is really a question of footpaths. This might be largely overcome by the owners of sections whose houses stand back—and there are some—voluntarily moving their front fences back, though whether in the event of the resultant extra width being put down in lawn, all would be willing to mow and keep tidy the portion in front of their own property, is open to question. The eastern side of the street is now- partly used to provide back entrances for tl;e shops in King Edward street, and the time may come when the whole of this side will be so used, as it is well suited to this purpose. If 40 feet frontage be allowed for each house, the western side W'ould provide sites for about 30 houses, but whether 40 feet would be sufficient for the erection of a more ambitious type of house is again open to question; but the rate-

payers may be willing to incur the expense necessary for the sake of 20 houses, while the present owners of the more undesirable houses would be glad to pick up a good windfall. —I am, etc.. Interested (No. 2). Dunedin February. 22.