TO GO AHEAD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 65, 17 March 1936, Page 8

TO GO AHEAD.

HOUSING SCHEME. COUNCIL'S DECISION. PLAN CONSIDERED SOUND. OBJECTION RAISED TO SITE. Considering that its proposals are .on sound lines, the Auckland City Council, it is understood, is determined to proceed with its housing scheme, which will volve an expenditure of £200,000. Negotiations for the finance to promote the scheme have been proceeding between the Local Government , Loans Bojjrd and the City Council-for the past six. months or so, and it is believed that while the'' board is favourable to the woklc proceeding, it has some objection to .tHe-proposed, site for the dwellings in Grey's Avenue. The board,, it is stated, is quite prepared to make a substantial jsroportion of the money required available, but is not inclined to advance the desired sum unless the council, modifies its plans in certain specified directions. The council, on the other hand, is convinced that its original scheme to develop and improve Grey's. Avenue by erecting, modern flats there is sound and should be proceeded with, and efforts will be made to influence the Loans Board to that way of thinking also. .. No official statement •in connection with the matter has .been made, and after sitting for a little over an hour and a half last Thursday the council adjourned, in committee without reporting progress. .At that meeting the counhad .before it,the Loans Board's replies tp its application for sanction to raise a , workers.' dwellings loan of £200,000 and a loan for miscellaneous works of £400,700. . ... ;, , History of the Scheme. , in July of last year that the council's housing and • work's' schemes first began to take definite .shape with the' provisional approval of "a schedule providing for a total- loan expenditure of £782,400, less unemployment- subsidies. In the following month, after a conference with the then Minister of Employment, tjie Hon. S. !G. . Smith, the council considered an enlarged schedule involving all expenditure of £834,000, less £105,200 expected to be received in subsidies. Later in the same month it was decided to apply to the Loans Board for approval of a limsing loan of £200,000 and a works loan of £444,100. The works schedule was subsequently revived and, as finally adopted at the end of November, it was as follows: — Drainage, £69,000; street works, £258,082; Nelson Street extension, £35,00Q; conveniences, £10,000; waterworks improvements, £s0,000; extension jto municipal abattoir, £7G00; cost, of raising loan, £118; total, £4*60,700. It was estimated at the time that Unemployment Board subsidies on the works named would amount to £66,950 and that the loan could be reduced by that sum. The proposed waterworks improvements consisted of the following: — Cleaning- and re-lining I*2 miles 50 chains of water mains in the city, £26,600; new reservoir at Ponsonby, £22,500; new waterworks depot at Ponsonby £11,400; j additional access rqads ,ancl tramlines m the Waitakere Ranges,' £19,500. - Similar adjustments as to cost have not been made' in regard to the liousin;? proposals "which, as adopted in September, were 'to raise a loan of £200.000 for. the erection of 125 flats in two blocks, one on either ;side \of Grey's Avenue, upon land over whi,eh the council "has ' obtained options, ancl of 125 semi-detached houses on a site' not disclosed.