Petitions

Petition re the City Building Bill (first)

The New Zealander 11^th February 1854

‘[As we have inserted above one of the Petitions on the subject of the Building Bill, with the names appended, we think it fair to re-publish the following also with the names, which were not given when it previously appeared in our columns.]

‘The Petition of the undersigned proprietors and inhabitants of the City of Auckland, humbly sheweth:-

‘That your Petitioners are deeply impressed with the necessity of some immediate steps being taken for the prevention of fire within the city; and that no measure appears to them so well calculated to effect this object as a law, prohibiting the further erection of wooden buildings within reasonable limits.

‘That your petitioners are of opinion that the time has now arrived when, from the wealth of the settlement, it can no longer be deemed a hardship that, at all events, within the principal streets, all future buildings should be of brick or stone, and particularly when it is considered that the longer the present systems of wooden erections is continued, the calamity will be the more certain to overtake us and the losses and hardships which will then fall upon us be immeasurably increased. Moreover, your petitioners believe that many parties are now anxious to erect buildings in brick or stone but are deterred from so doing because they do not thereby obtain an equivalent security, seeing that their neighbours may surround them with wooden buildings.

‘Your petitioners have also reason to believe, that were such a measure passed into a law, in a few years they would be able at moderate premiums to effect insurances against losses by fire, which at present is found to be all but impossible.

‘May it therefore please your Honourable House to take such immediate steps as you may think proper towards ensuring the safety of the town by prohibiting erections of wood for the future within such limits as may be considered advisable.

‘And your Petitioners, etc……….’

The New Zealander 11th February 1854

Petition re the City Building Bill (second)

'………It appears oppressive in the highest degree, to compel parties to erect expensive buildings, at a time when not a single line or level of any street is determined and consequently no security afforded that buildings thus erected may not one day be ruined or at least materially injured by the inevitable alterations that must take place in some cases and may take place in many.

'In consequence of the scarcity of labour of all descriptions, building materials are enormously dear and, in fact, scarcely procurable, joined to the circumstances of the numerous immigrants daily arriving, it appears to your petitioners unwise to add anything to the already existing difficulties on this head.

'A number of your petitioners belong to the humbler classes of society but are struggling to place themselves in circumstances of independence by every possible means, are holders of leases for land in various parts of the City and they conceive this measure will fall with peculiar severity upon them, as by prohibiting the erection of all but expensive edifices, it places the matter out of their reach and, consequently, deprives them of all hope and inflicts, they conceive, a great blow on the social and moral improvement of the working classes.

'We therefore pray your Honourable House will not give your sanction to the Bill in its present form or, at least until lines and levels of the streets are fully determined and the footpaths and streets throughout the City formed.

'And your petitioners etc…….'
Signatories: [Alphabetically sorted for convenience - JW]

Transcribed: January, 2001 by Jackie Walles, New Zealand