BUILDING RESTRICTIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 59, 10 March 1921, Page 9

BUILDING RESTRICTIONS.

SHOULD THEY GO ? NOT ENOUGH HOUSES NOW. DANGERnr? TO CHANGE LAW. A mce'.iirg- of the New Zealand Institute of Ar-hheets at Wellington at the cud oi week unanimously resolved w petition the Government to remote at ..n c all restrictions on building and bu 'dmc materials, on the ground that thes ■ are now ineffective, 'and merely op- -ate in restraint, of legitimate de-.te!--.mcTii. The consensus of opinion in Aucxiand do-s not co-ordinate with this, fo- the men interviewed by the "star"' tb.s ,i: .rum: have by their remarks left trc :m: riv-mn t at a removal of the prcsc.i restrictions on building will do rncr.- I.arm t.ian is done at present to :re . .... mmiit\. ' i here i- not onou-eh timber to-day to i : ■■•■• the nouses that people -want.'' sr "' '». -' makes his uving in this direction. He thought the removal of the present restriction would cneouraee business concerns to rebuild or remodel or perhaps alter or expand, tiieir premises. ar ,d he suggested that this would create a "till greater shortage of the timber available for the housing of the poople. He said there was one institute in Auckland which wa, being extend-,': in concrete, and. just to show •what this meant, he pointed out that if rr.e w ,-.od now coin- into that b.iildinff were cut to hous. ««*. ii would be sufficient tor rhe scantling of ten _aOv=p_. Yet another business man. who was *■*'«*" cm P hati < i" his fitatemeiu .hat sufficient timber was not available to build the houses at present in oemand. He had a couple of men come to him a week ago with a proposition to have "a finger in the pie"' m a good commercial bush. but he turned them down because he could not see how the labour could be obtained. This naturally took him onto the subject of available workmen, and he raised the argument that hundreds oi the old millhands ahd lived all their lives in the country, and on their return from tbe war they had just naturally taken up farming with State assistance. "These men are all out of the mills now." said the man who was talking, "but. mark mv words, they will come back to the game within a few years. The mills now are short-handed, and they cannot efficiently open new areas because of this shortage of labour. But there are so many Government blocks, purchased at a price beyond the power of the soldier settlers to work them at a profit, that hundreds of them »re bound, to slip into their former vocations in the future." The expressed convictions of several other men were to the effect that a removal of the current building restrictions would be of no real benefit to tbe community. To-day there was not enough timber for the houses that were wanted, and a combination of price and delay played havoc with requirements in tbe direction of housebuilding. Indeed it was hinted by one or two that some of the milling firms were substituting timbers at high prices for those they had previously been selling at a much lower figure, and this caused a considerable increase in the cost of every house whose timber came from these mills. In summary, it is apparent that there ia not sufficient timber to build the houses that axe actually on order today. and even where price is not considered the delay in deliveries is a most important factor. There are houses on order to-day that will not be completed this year. In this case a return to the old 'system, whereby a prospective builder has merely to get a permit from the local authority instead of from both the local body and the Board of Trade, would result' in the building of less houses, while alterations and extensions, or even the building, of other premises not so absolutely necessary to the convenience of the populace, would hinder houses.