FOR LOW RENTALS

Evening Post, Issue 82, 6 April 1936, Page 6

FOR LOW RENTALS

A HOUSING SCHEME

MR. J. W. MAWSON'S PLAN

"The housing problem in New Zealand, as I see it, is largely a financial one—how to build houses of permanent material which can be let at an inclusive economic rental of 15s to 25s a week. Without being unduly optimistic, I believe that I have solved the problem and it now remains to put the matter to the test," said Mr. J. W. Mawson, former director of town planning, who has just returned from a year's visit to, England, where the studied housing finance and administration.

"With the exception of constructional steel and sanitary fittings the whole of the building materials I require are available in New Zealand," continued Mr. Mawson in an interview with

"Tha Post." "We have the skilled labour, and we have the finance. It remains only to secure the approval and support of the Government and local authorities. Some relaxation or. amendment of our building bylaws may be necessary, but I can guarantee that the houses to be built to the designs of Dr. Oscar Faber, president of the Institution of Structural Engineers, and consulting engineer to the British Government and the Bank of England, will afford a higher resistance to fire and earthquake stresses than anything which has yet been attempted so far in New Zealand. They will be known as 'safety' houses. , "The necessary machinery has already been purchased with a capacity of 200 houses a year and a company is to be formed and registered in New Zealand with a paid-up capital of £30,000, of which I shall be managing director." . Mr. Mawson said he had received the exclusive New Zealand rights of manufacture and sale of a new form of mild steel reinforcement, which, ton for ton, was one-third as strong again as the plain bars now in use. In England' and on the Continent this new steel was rapidly displacing plain bars. Mr. Mawson went to England in February of last year with the intention of giving his brother a hand with some important work on the ,Continent for which he was the' architect, including the proposed "University City" of Pans and a large housing scheme in Bucharest Unfortunately the Abyssinian affair started just after he landed and the schemes had to be postponed. He had every intention of returning to New Zealand as soon as economic conditions warranted it, to carry out a scheme •he had .been engaged on for. the past three years—the design and erection of fire-resisting and earth-quake-resisting buildings, particularly houses for the lower-paid wage-earners.