“Boulevard Has Reached A Dead End.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18786, 15 June 1929, Page 2

“Boulevard Has Reached A Dead End.”

HOUSES CANNOT BE ~ SET BACK BECAUSE OF SMALL SECTIONS

RESIDENTS SAY PLAN IS NOT PRACTICABLE

<f The river boulevard scheme has reached a dead end; they cannot go on at either end,” declared Mr J. L. Stinear, a resident in the to a “ Star ” reporter thi3 morning. Mr Stinear said that the boulevard had arrived at each of its extremities at a point where it was not practicable to get the necessary land to carry the boulevard on at its full width.

At the Morris Street end, said Mr Stinear, there were about six houses which were built on the minimum space of land. These houses could not be shifted back, for when the requisite frontages for the boulevard were deducted there would not remain sufficient land for the houses to ctand o .. All that would remain would be a strip of land on which the back yards of properties in Leighton Street would face.

“ They cannot shift the houses back,’’ said Mr Stinear. “ The properties will have to be wiped out altogether. It is going to cost thousands of pounds.” As an instance of the impracticability of moving back the houses he pointed out that if a house was shifted back the distance required, the back door would be on the other side of the hack dividing fence. Most of the money that had been spent on the boulevard, said Mr Stinear, and which people thought had been spent in labour for the unemployed had been spent in material. Except for the latest portion to be dealt with, the river bank was not a bit better to-day than it was before. It had been dug over and a lot of money’ and time spent on it, and then it had been left to grow weeds. “ Mr Owen says the property-owners round there are very’ keen on the boulevard,” said Mr Stinear. “ That is contrary to fact. The few people in favour of it were the land owners, not the property’ owners.” There ■were some land owners, he said, whom it suited, and who were able to give the frontages, but that did not apply to the property owners. lie disputed the assertion that, he said, had been mads by Mr Owen that the boulevard would increase the value of property’, and said that sales of sections on the boulevard had not been successful. For good sections on the boulevard, £2OO could not be obtained.

Mr Stinear suggested that the only practicable plan would be to round the boulevard off at each end of the portion now dealt with and continue it at a width that would not involve the setting back of the properties.

The same width of roadway’ could be provided as in the rest of the boulevard. The river bank would be narrower and they would have to do away’ with the tree-planted strip on the footpaths. If this plan had been followed from the start, said Mr Stinear, it would have been possible, for the money already spent, to have carried the road as far as Swan’s Road bridge.

Mr Wiltshire, another resident in the locality’, described the boulevard as a white elephant. He said that it could not be continued at its present width without wiping out altogether the properties that would be affected. The sections were too small to permit of the houses being set back.