Poetry Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. MONDAY, MARCH 10, 1879.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 646, 10 March 1879, Page 2

Poetry Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. MONDAY, MARCH 10, 1879.

We trust that the Borough Council will deem it expedient that the operation of the Bye-law, which limits the materials of which buildings, within certain defined bounds of the Municipality, shall not come into force within at least twelve months after it has received the Governor's assent. There are many reasons why this is desirable. "We think, because a man may have had the misfortune to suffer m his business and his pocket, owing to his shop and dwelling having been destroyed by fire, it is rough upon him that he should be compelled to erect a more expensive bonding m the place of the one which has brought down a calamity npon him. We think it is only just and right, he should be permitted to reinstate himself without these restrictions being placed upon him which will cause such re-instatement to be a great additional cost, and may, perhaps, prevent him establishing himself m his business upon its former basis. He will not be placed on an equal footing with those of his brother traders, who have escaped from the calamity of fire. A man, if the Byelaw is assented to, will have to erect a building of material certainly three times more costly than that of his neighbor alongside of him ; and when he comes to insure against fire, he will have to pay an additional pi*emium, because, notwithstanding his premises are brick, and his roof of iron, the adjoining premises are of timber, imnammable as tinder, with a roof, of shingle dried by many hot summer's suns, which may ignite at any time by the dropping of a single spark. The two men do not stand m the same footing of equality. The consequences, we fear, will be, that unsightly gaps will be found to exist m the most business portions of the main thoroughfare of the town, because the landowner cannot afford to build of costly material, or does not, upon the ground of the law being so partial, chose to do so. Again, some of the properties destroyed by fire were upon ground subject to short leases and high rents, which it would answer no one's purpose to rebuild if the building may not be constructed of less costly material than brick, stone, or iron. Unfortunately the best unoccupied sites for business and dwellings m or near to the line of the Gladstone Road on either side, are leaseholds only, and the result will be that property m these places will be greatly depreciated m value, and a second township will shortly commence to spring up beyond the boundary denned by the Municipal Building Bye-laws. Men m comparatively small towns like Gisborne, the centre of comparatively poor districts, m the absence of cheap stone rubble, cannot afford to build of other material than timber. To most of us the thing would be altogether out of the question. To-morrow, or next week, or next month, a poor man's cottage may be burned to the ground, for which, perhaps, he is insured for a hundred or two hundred pounds; but the amount of his insurance would not rebuild him a dwelling, required by the Bye-laws, and the consequence is, he goes and builds beyond the field of

the Boroughs boundary lines ; so that m a few years, as houses decay, and require repairs and additions, or become subject to fires, we shall witness gaps and blotches whei-e we should otherwise have private dwellings, or thriving business stores and shops. With respeci to iron walls, which, we presume, can only mean sheets of thin corrugated iron, such constructions for dwellings are all but uninhabitable. They are furnaces m summer, and ice-houses m winter. For shops iron is quite unsuitable, as goods of many kinds perish, and rust, and shrivel, and become unmerchantable*. We do not know whether Borough Councillors are aware that corrugated iron " sweats " during the nights of winter, and that this sweating is injurious to many kinds of tradesmen's goods and general merchandise. Iron, again, is no safeguard against fire. Iron, for business or dwelling walls, must have studs and lining of wood, and no sooner does wood ignite and become a strong flame than sheet iron m contiguity curls up like a scroll, and exposes to the blaze all that is near to it. What, again, will be felt as a hardship, is this •: — Many buildings, within the scope of the Bye-law, will require the shingles of the roof's repairing and making good. Under the Bye-law this could not be done, nor could a kitchen, a pantry, or an extra bedroom be added to a dwelling, nor a store-room to a shop, unless the material be such as is mentioned m the Municipal Bye-law. Under all these circumstances, we trust that if the Bye-law is to be passed, its operation will be extended for quite twelve months before coming into force. A calculation made by our Town Surveyor shows that only one-sixtieth of the Borough of Gisborne is built upon. The buildings, then, with the exception of two or three business blocks, stand very isolated, and we cannot see any necessity for such steingent regulations, caused simply by a scare, due to two or three fires occurring m quick succession, such fires never having occurred before, and may possibly not occur again. * A ton of potatoes m an iron store m summer, m Victoria, loses 89 lbs. the first week ; m a brick or stone store, 27| lbs. the first week. In an iron store, new cheese loses 10 per cent, of its weight ; when m a brick or stone building, they only lose 2 per cent. Much the same follows with many other kinds of products. Insurance offices m Victoria and New South charge very high risks upon iron buildings, some of the agencies considering them quite as hazardous, and, m some instances, even more hazardous than those built of wood.