CONVENIENCE GIVEN PRIORITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27040, 26 March 1949, Page 2

CONVENIENCE GIVEN PRIORITY

In the extension of its cities and the development of housing areas, is the Dominion unthinkingly using up its first-grade lands for residential purposes, thus driving commercial gardeners and nearby farmers, principally dairymen, further afield? .If so, the ultimate result must be that essential commodities for city dwellers will have to be transported over longer distances, thereby becoming more costly. Statistical records indicate that this is the position

Undoubtedly there is a tendency to erect dwellings for workers in the most convenient position handy to a city, and much fertile land which in the past has produced foodstuffs has been lost.

It is contended by many that in these days of high labour and material costs, the reason, too, for using agricultural land for housing is that the initial subdivisional costs are considerably. lower than they would be if undulating or hill country were used. Almost all the principal cities of the Dominion are grouped round harbours, surrounded for the most part by low to high hills. The most accessible' of these have been built upon, arid now, with the extreme housing shortage making the need more urgent, Government housing development on a large scale has taken place, and still is taking place, on land that might well be retained for foodproducing purposes. New Zealand is not alone in this problem. Britain, too, is in the same position. Recent reports from London indicate that vigorous criticism has been launched against the Government policy of taking good pasture land for the purpose of establishing small towns—“ satellite towns ”—adjacent to new open-cast coal workings. In Cheshire alone, it has been estimated by the National Farmers’ Union that four such schemes will deprive the country of 1,000,000 gallons of milk and an equal production from arable crops. The taking of farm lands for housing has been wholeheartedly condemned by primary producers there. The problem is not one for farmers alone to consider. It is a national one, but because the man on the land is more intimately associated with the soil, and realises more fully than does the city dweller just what it produces, he has been the first to raise his voice in protest.

Because of the immense present and future value of agricultural land, many people in Dunedin condemned the suggested large-scale housing development at Wingatui. Was it wise, they asxed to expand the city to the detriment of our food requirements? Though it is - one of the richest areas of flat land in Otago, it appears inevitable that portions of this district, expecially areas adjacent to Mosgiei, will be utilised more and more as time goes on for house-building purposes. Two blocks have already been acquired by the State and these will be subdivided, roaded and have about 30 houses built upon each of them Admittedly these two blocks are in the borough and within a short walk of the centre of the shopping area. While appreciating the necessity foi homes, the point to remember is that the production value of this land, once built upon, will be lost —and that for all time., . The industrial extension of Dunedin, with its more or less staticpopulation will be comparatively slow, many people believe. It is considered, therefore, that the poorer type of land round the city should first be utilised for housing. Apart from unused hillside land, in _ and about the city, there is a considerable area of land, extremely easy of access and for the most part flat, lying along the full length of the Kaikorai Valley from the Roslyn mill to Burnside. This land, while having some agricultural or pastoral value, could well be utilised for housing purpose? in preference to the good deep soi’ land of the Taieri. The Kaikorai Valley, where reticulation —power, sewerage, etc—presents no problems whatever. could accommodate several hundred homes.

Dunedin city has not made the inroads into its agricultural lands to the same extent as have Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland. It is not so many years ago that all the Hutt Valley was used as the market garden of Wellington. Twenty years ago its several thousands of acres of excellent land were used to supply the city with vegetables and milk. As late as 1939—and considerable housing development was even then completed—it was estimated that commercial gardeners cultivated some 600 acres, but by 1947 this had shrunk to 226. Each year the capital city goes further and further afield for its milk and vegetables, the latter becoming dearer each successive season. In Auckland, much of the housing and industrial development of recent years has taken place right in the heart of the : city’s vegetable basket. Panmure provides an example. It is considered there are numerous areas containing poor land, eminently suitable for housing development, and closer to the city proper, which could first have been utilised for home building. The same story might also be told of Christchurch, where rich land in Papanui, Harewood and Riccarton has been given over to housing development projects. Whatever the country’s needs may be, the value of good soil should never be overlooked, and a general rule should be laid down that towns and cities, wherevey located, should be extended upon the poorest and not the richest soil. In these days of expanding world populations (something like 55.000 a day) and when the line of that expansion is more and more heavily pressing upon that of production, the people of the twentieth century, even in the comparative abundance of New Zealand, cannot afford wilfully to misuse potentially valuable food-produc: ing land, or take it out of production altogether.