IMPORTANT LAND VALUE CASE

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2206, 9 October 1907, Page 1

IMPORTANT LAND VALUE CASE

WHAT VALUE HAS A RESERVOIR RESERVE?

Press Association.

WELLINGTON, Oct. 8,

Tlio first case before the Appeal Court is Fitchett .and another v. the Mayor of Wellington. . This involves a new point of interest to all corporations who find their own water supply. Wellington city took 302 acres by proclamation near Ivarori dam, for which some £23,000 compensation was claimed. Section 305 of the Municipal Corporations Act forbids the fouling of any water or watersheds by allowing drainage to flow into it, and the Corporation claimed that in the face of this the land taken could not bo valued on the basis of building or even dairy land, both of which would foul the water, but only as rural sheepfarming land. It is this point which is to be settled by argument before the Court.

Mr. Chapman, K.C., for claimant, contended that section 305 of the Municipal Corporations Act must be so construed as not to destroy vested rights. It did not alter the common law, and only gave the. Corporation an easier remedy than by proceeding for an injunction.

Messrs Morison and Findlay followed bn the same lines. Messrs Gray and O’Shea, for the Corporation, contended .that tlio intention of the Legislature as expressed in section 305 was clearly to restrict the right of any owner of part of a watershed feeding a reservoir in the use of his land and that the clear words of tho section must bo- given effect to.