Housing Policy

Press, Volume C, Issue 29466, 18 March 1961, Page 10

Housing Policy

Statisticians are unlikely ever to predict exactly when public and private enterprise will transform a housing shortage into a glut. Since the Second World War housing has been one of the most important issues in New Zealand politics; and any government needs courage to suggest that it should lose priority. In recent years, however, the dangers of wasteful development and of concessions to political expediency have become increasingly plain. In its 1960 election policy the National Party emphasised its desire to ensure better use of all the Dominion’s housing resources, to contain urban sprawl, and to assist the rehabilitation of decayed residential districts. This desire was reaffirmed on Tuesday at a Wellington conference by the Minister of Housing (Mr Rae). The Government’s broad proposals should go far towards correcting the undesirable trends fostered particularly by the Labour Party’s discriminatory system of loans— a system that has depressed unfairly the values of older but still useful houses and encouraged shoddy, inadequate construction in areas without established public amenities. Abundant evidence of Labour disregard for economic realities and land conservation is to be seen on the fringes of any of the bigger cities. This disregard has aggravated the pressure for roading. sewerage, water reticulation, electricity and telephone services, transport, public buildings, and all other civic requirements. Only slowly, also, are New

Zealanders made aware that land available for production is less extensive than many of them have thought. New Zealand cities, though young as cities go, are already marred by deplorable slums. The clearance of these slums affords a wonderful opportunity for enlightened planning to cope with the accommodation requirements of a community far more sophisticated and varied in its tastes than the Victorian England from which came its founders. The Labour Government was lamentably unenthusiastic about high-density housing, the logical replacement for many slums. Its successor will benefit from research which has continued in spite of government apathy, and which has reinforced arguments against adhering slavishly and uninterestingly to traditional patterns of construction and land use. Slum - clearance schemes initiated by local authorities have progressed very slowly. In Christchurch a pilot scheme for a small area in Salisbury street should help the City Council and citizens to appreciate the importance and magnitude of their task. Because of changes in the Dominion’s economic and social structure the State must continue to influence powerfully the trends of housing construction. Nevertheless, it should be possible for the Government to shed part of its burden through greater co-operation with local authorities, and thus to relate assistance more closely to strictly local needs. This should help, too, to

avoid unnecessary expenditure, public or private, on any particular category of accommodation, and to free a reasonable proportion of the labour force for commercial projects.