HOUSING FINANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 48, 26 February 1937, Page 6

HOUSING FINANCE.

Labonr members, very rightly, have had a good deal to say in the past concerning the withholding of details of cost of Governmental activities. Now they are in power, a reversal of this policy might reasonably have been anticipated. The Administration has not, however, been more communicative; in some cases it has been even less inclined to take the taxpayer into its confidence. On the State housing scheme, for instance, Mr. J. A. Lee, the Undei'-Secretary, has made several general statements concerning the letting of tenders and the number of applications for houses, but the public is still in ignoranee of the | estimated cost of the scheme so far as it has progressed or of the costs of the houses for which tenders have been let. He has declared that estimates of cost prepared by the Hutt Valley Master Builders' Association are incorrect, but he has not stated how far they are from the facts or what relation the suggested rentals will bear to the cost of construction. The conference of the Master Builders' Federation now suggests that a much more elaborate structure than is really necessary has been planned, and it criticises the administration for not consulting the building industry when designing the dwellings, a matter in which builders as well as architects might have valuable ideas to communicate. The federation points to a weakness in the tendering for the larger I groups, in that tendering is restricted, because | of the heavy capital outlay involved, to one or two groups. Information as to tenders already in hand would show whether this criticism is valid; in its absence the public and other tenderers are both left guessing.