Point taken about haste in wild but people could just mine in A/B for materials then? Perhaps to combat the influx of stuff we can raise the price of "haste" to something that might more be balanced, but not too high to where its not worth it?
~ @Hornemans
Yes, a sufficient price hike should help counter the attractiveness of mining in A/B along with the price of claiming plots. But this might in turn make it unattractive altogether and it just becomes another white elephant on the server like the *cough* head shop *cough*cough* of late.
Possible solutions:
Mining should be made illegal via rules in towns world, claiming a plot mining it and unclaiming it.
Calculate average cost of materials and time to mine them in a chunk and make the price inline with that. If it seems to high scrap the idea.
Disable Haste IV below lvl 16 or 25 to minimize mining for valuable minerals. Few towns go that low if they still need to they can use a beacon. Don't know if this would be possible though?