Letter to the Editor 1994 – Don’t stifle Hastings’ growth

Don’t stifle Hastings’ growth

Mr Editor. – I find myself very much aligned with the news item in your newspaper (April 26) where Mayor Dwyer and Cr Coxon are saying for the necessity of integrated growth and for the future of Hastings let us have an attractive housing subdivision.

Hawke’s Bay is a bountiful province and Hastings a desirable city in which to live. Why are we intent upon stifling its growth and future? I agree with the considerations put in favour of a housing subdivision. My recall of the arguments against tells me that many were unrealistic and others emotive. At this time it is fine to graze a horse or two, or a sheep or two; it is OK to misuse and mismanage as many hectares as you like but do not dare talk housing subdivisions.

We have been wrong about our policy of using “poor” land for housing. We have since proved that poor land, properly used and managed, can be highly productive.

We now live in a market-driven economy. When the market is strong and the product viable please name me the goods that cannot be produced because of the shortage of fertile land on the Heretaunga Plains. Include “top” horticultural land.

Taken to its conclusion the argument of the factions who oppose subdivisions is that Hastings, Napier and their satellites should be evacuated and razed and we should build multi-level condominiums on the Kawekas.

Our support should be for those who would allow our splendid city to grow.

Hastings   Ian Webster

Preserve Lyndhurst land for future generations

Mr Editor. – About 40 years ago I attended a meeting of the Heretaunga Young Farmers Club. The guest speaker was Jim (later Sir James) Wattie.

As could be expected the theme of his address was to enumerate the challenges that lay ahead for the young people of this district. But, more than that, the patriarch of Hawke’s Bay dealt with the responsibilities that we had to create employment in this province and more particularly the attendant duties that existed to ensure that the unique land properties of the Heretaunga Plains were preserved for future generations.

He concluded by saying that the biggest mistake that he had even made was to build a cannery on alluvial land. My word, I wish that those who would seek to overturn the recent Lyndhurst housing decision had been at that meeting.

But what has gone wrong with democracy in Hastings? A vote is taken and is lost, albeit narrowly, and yet those whose feathers have been ruffled immediately set to change the result.

If the fair city of Hastings is to be governed effectively then surely the wishes of the majority must be respected. Cr Baxter appears to be the meat in the sandwich. It has always been the prerogative of the female gender (and freely exercised at that) to change their minds but in this case let us hope that Cr Baxter has the intestinal fortitude to resist the advances of those who would seek to pressure a change of heart.

To use the reason that the recent hailstorm is responsible for the business and building inactivity in Hastings is dubious indeed. If the alluvial land around Hastings is built over then the result will be similar to an annual hailstorm.

Rissington   Brian Pattullo

Rude shocks for lifestyle farmers

Mr Editor. – Along Matapiro Rd people are subdividing productive pastoral land into 15 acre blocks apparently allowed as-of-right after changes to the district scheme.

The so-called lifestyle blocks resemble Shanty Town development.

This type of development is driving up the price of pastoral land to levels where the days of a young hard worker being able to save to buy himself a farm have all but gone.

If farmers subdivide and erode their productive land base, with the consent of local government, the long-term effect will be less revenue from the land. So who will be better off?

In the long-term the city will suffer because what is earned on the land is spent in the city (and usually not in places like the ill-conceived council-sponsored K mart development).

With the up-and-coming Gatt agreement, prices for food and produce are set to rise universally which makes even less reason for farmers who subdivide to join the chicken run.

For those farmers who cannot, for whatever reason, make a go of farming, why not sell to other farmers or youngsters keen to have a go?

Most purchasers of so-called lifestyle blocks come in for a rude shock after spending their money. Almost invariable they don’t have the knowledge, expertise or background to utilise the productive potential of the land they buy.

The turnover figures of lifestyle blocks in other parts of the country show these blocks become a millstone around their owners’ necks when they find out how much work is involved. All too often they become a thorn in the side of genuine farmers living alongside them.

The sooner the council re-establishes the previous by-law that stops subdivision on such an open-slather scale and puts the onus on purchasers to prove they are buying an economic unit, the better.

It is a privilege to be a landowner, not a right.

Fernhill   Kevin Bayley, Alan Gunn