The Short Title of this Act is “The Wellington City Empowering Act, 1899.”

In this Act, if not inconsistent with the context,—

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any public or private or local Act, it shall be lawful for the Council or for the Corporation to borrow any sum or sums of money by way of special loan for all or any of the purposes set out in the Schedule hereto if three-fifths of the votes actually given upon the taking of any poll required by law to be taken on the proposal to borrow any such sum shall be in favour of such proposal:

Provided that the Council shall, in every such proposal to borrow, set out the estimated cost of each proposal submitted, and the authority to borrow in respect of any such proposal carried on such vote shall, in every instance, be limited to the amount of the estimated cost of such proposed work. The authority to borrow under this Act shall be deemed to have lapsed and become void unless exercised on or before the thirty-first day of December, one thousand nine hundred and two.

Any poll taken on a proposal to raise any sum of money under section three may be taken at such convenient polling-booths situate within the city (being not less than one in each ward) as the Returning Officer shall appoint, anything in subsection three of section one hundred and eighty-one of “The Municipal Corporations Act, 1886,” notwithstanding.

Nothing in this Act contained shall be held to take away from the Council or Corporation any power to raise money by way of special loan or otherwise that the Council or Corporation possesses under any general or private or local Act.

Section seven of “The Wellington City Empowering Act, 1897,” is hereby amended as follows:—

For the purposes of subsection one of the said section seven, the said Act shall be deemed a special Act within the meaning of section fourteen of “The Public Works Act, 1894.”

In subsection three of the said section seven the words “special order under the Act” are hereby substituted for “special loan under the said Act or this Act,” and it shall accordingly be unnecessary to take any poll upon any loan raised under the same subsection.

The net rents and profits to be derived from any letting of the present Corporation Offices and Town Hall site (being the land comprised in certificate of title, Volume lviii., folio 186) and the buildings thereon, and from any letting of the proposed Town Hall, and of any shops, offices, or other buildings erected in connection therewith, or of any land set apart for or occupied with the said Town Hall or other buildings, and the city rates to be derived from the said present premises when let or sold, and from tenants of any shops, offices, or other buildings erected in connection with the Town Hall, or of any such land as last aforesaid, shall be appropriated to meeting interest or sinking fund on or in relation to the special loan or loans hereby authorised to be raised for erecting the said Town Hall and Corporation Offices and other buildings.

If the Council shall sell the said present premises, or any part thereof, before raising any part of the said loan, the net purchase-moneys shall be applied towards erecting the new buildings, and the amount of the said special loan shall be reduced correspondingly; but if such sale shall take place after any part of the said special loan shall have been raised, the said net purchase-moneys shall be appropriated to a sinking fund in connection with the said special loan.

Section five of “The Wellington City Empowering Act, 1897,” is hereby repealed.

In addition to the powers conferred upon the Council by “The Municipal Corporations Act, 1886,” in relation to the prevention and extinguishing of fires, it shall be lawful for the Council to establish a permanent fire-brigade, composed of a Superintendent, with or without other officers, and of firemen and other persons employed directly under the Council, or to continue its present fire-brigade; and it shall also be lawful for the Council to pay out of the General Account such fixed or other salaries or other remuneration as the Council shall think fit to all persons employed directly under it in connection with any fire-brigade.

Notwithstanding anything contained in the last proviso in section five of “The Wellington Corporation Leaseholds Act, 1885,” any such new lease as is referred to in that section may, on such surrender of the existing lease as in such section is mentioned, be granted at any time within one year from the coming into operation of this Act.

The net rents and the city rates to be derived from the letting by the Corporation of the present fire-brigade premises, situate in Brandon Street and in Manners Street, shall be applied by the Council towards paying the interest on and providing a sinking fund for the moneys to be borrowed under “The Wellington City Empowering Act, 1897,” and this Act for erecting a fire-brigade station on the Reclaimed Land.