CITY WORKERS' DWELLINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 227, 25 September 1930, Page 11

CITY WORKERS' DWELLINGS.

INQUIRY INTO SCHEME URGED. FORMER TENANTS' PETITION. (By Telegiapn.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. In a long petition presented by Mr. J. S. Fletcher (Independent, Grey Lynn), two former tenants of Auckland City Council workers' dwellings at Grey Lynn, Robert A. Cowley, engine fitter, and John Booth Prohl, printer, asked that full inquiry be made into the financial history and present position of these dwellings, including the question of their legal ownership, and that in the meantime no legislation be paesed authorising the Auckland City Council to expend £3945 upon repairs and additions to these dwellings. Petitioners set out in detail the history of the housing scheme, and they declare that many of the houses are structurally defective, and that the selling prices and repayment instalments are in many cases excessive. Arrears of interest, principal, rates and insurance of 24 tenants had been written off at various times at a lose of £26,400, though (states the petition) a! number of these preferentially-treated mortgagors were in permanent employment. Petitioners and other mortgagors had not received similar consideration, 1 and one had been forced to vacate, after. notification that his weekly payments must be increased to overtake arrears. It is proposed by the City Council to spend £3945 in repairs, pergolas and porches, a proposal characterised by the petitioners as economically unjustifiable and also inequitable, unless the council resumes formal ownership of these properties, which many of the owners, including the petitioners, wish to surrender.