PROBLEMS OF HOUSING

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29268, 28 July 1960, Page 8

PROBLEMS OF HOUSING

Progress Seen In

Australia

An increasing interest in pensioners’ cottages and housing for the aged generally was being taken in Australian cities, said Cr. M. R. Carter yesterday. Cr. Carter is chairman of the City Council’s housing committee, and returned yesterday after a sixweek visit to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane on a combined business and pleasure trip. In particular, Cr. Carter looked at slum clearances and housing reclamation projects and housing for the aged. He looks forward to the Christchurch council improving its already good record of building pensioners’ cottages, but thinks that there could be a simplification of design, lowering costs.

“Sydney is well aware of the slum clearance and redevelopment problem,” Cr. Carter said. “The Lord Mayor was sent overseas and visited the main centres where slum clearance has taken place. The Sydney council now has three projects for slum clearance under way, with one scheme two-thirds towards completion.” All the areas being redeveloped with high-density housing were within two miles of the centre of the city and had been enclosed by industrial or commercial development. Melbourne was possibly more active than Sydney, he said. A sum of £5O million was being spent on slum clearance, and £34 million of it was expected to be written off.

“Christchurch has exactly the same problem on a smaller scale,” Cr. Carter said. He brought back with him plans and details of Australian reclamation schemes, but has no doubt that a plan for the local area to be redeveloped by the council in Salisbury street can be prepared in Christchurch. In the year since he last visited Sydney, Cr. Carter noticed a great increase in the highdensity housing, both for letting and selling as home units. The Housing Commission had done some of the work, but a lot was left to private enterprise.