NEW HOUSES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 173, 23 July 1936, Page 8

NEW HOUSES.

STATE POLICY. SITES AT ORAKEI. FINALISING PLANS. EARLY START PROPOSED. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. Within a fortnight the Government expects to be in a position to call tenders for the erection of the first homes under its comprehensive housing policy. This statement was made to-day by the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. M. J.. Savage, who pointed out that the Government already had land at Orakei (Auckland) and Miramar and Lower Hutt.

"We will assist those men who want to build homes for themselves," Mr. Savage said, "and we will also construct houses which workers can rent. Wo do not want anything in the nature of standardised houses or tenements. What will be done will be the building of real homes, where children can be reared under decent conditions. There is no need to create a tenement position in New Zealand. As soon as we get started we will go for our lives all the time, but wo will not do any jerry building.

'We do not want the people to be able to stay inside their homes and see down the street through the cracks in the walls, and wo do not want standardised houses built in groups in which people can say 'There they are.' We have a vision or real homes, and our job is to give effect to it."

■When it was suggested to Mr. Savage that the Orakei settlement was originally proclaimed an area for workers' homes, but had eventuallv become a

suburb of high-priced land, be said that there were still areas which he was given to understand were capable of being used for the erection of homes at a moderate cost.