HOUSING SHORTAGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 235, 4 October 1937, Page 6

HOUSING SHORTAGE.

In all parts of the Dominion complaints are made that the Government's housing policy has had the effect of slowing np the number of houses under construction, by causing a sharp curtailment in private building. The Builders' Federation has discussed the matter and remitted it to its various branches, which are making suggestions to encourage the potential house-owner. The president of the Hawke's Bay Real Estate Institute emphasises the point, and asserts that the Fair Rents Act has retarded building activity in both town and country. He agreed that the Government scheme had afforded relief, but thought that Government aid to individual citizens to encourage them to build would have met the position more efficiently. Mr. J. A. Lee, Parliamentary Under-Secretary in charge of Housing, however, does not favour the Stateaided scheme, on the ground that it is of comparatively little use to the wage-earner, and that it is economically unsound in that it leads individuals to compete with each other with State money for land and materials. But many of those who will pay the rent under the Government scheme would pay very little imore under an amortisation plan which would lead to eventual ownership. The Department might well consider the representations which have been made to it with a view to extending the methods of overcoming the shortage.