OVER 2200.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 4, 6 January 1938, Page 8

OVER 2200.

HOME SEEKERS.

ACUTE POSITION.

APPLICATIONS PILE UP.

STATE HOUSING PROBLEM.

Revealing the continued acutenesi of the housing shortage in Auckland, the applications for houses received by the State Advances Department have shown no diminution over the pa c t few months, and it apfx>ars that at least four new houses a day are required to c-"pe with the current demand. In addition to this there is a waiting li=t of applicant®, totalling for Auckland alone over 2200.

Oa an average the Department continues to receive from 20 t" 30 applications a week, an average which ha« been maintained with only small variations since the first rush ended about four months ago. During the week ended on Christmas Eve. 27 applications were received, and there has been a resumption of the flow since the office reopened after the holidavg.

There is little prospect of more than one house a day being available during the next three months, and even then it fs unlikely that the number of State houses available will ripe to much more than a dozen a week. If meanwhile the accumulation goes on at the present rate, the total on the waiting list may reach 2500.

The Government has planned or under eonstruction in various parts of Auckland city and suburbs 561 houses, which will require the greater part of the year complete, and it is expected that further schemes will be prepared as development proceeds. Details of the total are:—Orakei, 297 houses; Casey's Estate, Grey Lynn, 127; Otahuhu, 53; Devonport, 36;" Point Chevalier, 20; Buckland's Road, Epsom, 28. Twenty Tenants at Orakei. No longer a mere housing scheme, the Government's Orakei estate is becoming the home of numerous families, and before long the population there should run into several hundreds. Already 20 tenants have' established themselves in Coates Avenue since the first houses wire handed over to the State Advances Department by the contractors three weeks ago, and the progress of settlement should be increased during the aext few weeks.

It is expected that the houses will be Jet at the rate of one a day, and that the whole estate of 297 houses will be occupied within about nine months. In the first contract of 212 houses, 100 are either completed or receiving the finishing touches, and the work of forming footpaths, erecting clothes lines and levelling the sections is being pushed on rapidly.

The houses are being allotted by ballot ™ Wellington, with preference to the moet urgent applications, and in each case a tenancy agreement is signed with the Department before the tenant enters in.

. Extending the estate on the south side of Coates Avenue, the Government «n*U contracts for a total of 49 houses, and further contracts will bring the total on this -part •f the subdivision to 85

Suborfcaa Development. The development of the five other estates is well under way. At Otahuhu, where the first contract is for 15 houses, tenants should be admitted within two ■nonths, and later 38 more houses, ■bruizing' the total to 53, will be put in, handf On Casey's estate the earliest houses, jegun in October, are taking shape a*d should be ready to let just after Easter? /At Devonport, w here 36 houses are .ncluaed in the Governments scheme for that suburb, occupation will begin in the mte autumn and extend through the winter.

.Two blocks are planned for Point Chevalier, and as the sites for 20 houses je been selected on the sections, everything is in readiness for the builders to make an immediate start.

At Buckland's Road, Epsom, work was begun before Christmas on a block of 28 bouses, and steady progress is beingmade under the present favourable conditions.