Pensioners’ Housing Delayed

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30054, 12 February 1963, Page 12

Pensioners’ Housing Delayed

Last year when he opened a block of pensioners’

cottages in Wilsons road, the Minister of Housing, Mr Rae, said the lead the Christchurch City Council had given other local bodies in the provision of pensioners’ accommodation was much appreciated by the Government. The City Council is understandably exasperated, therefore, by the delay to the block of pensioners’ cottages in Dunaman street while the Health Department considers the method of construction. The block is of 52 single-unit cottages estimated to cost £90,080. Of this sum the council expected to find by loan £48,400, the remainder from Government subsidy. The Health Department, as the Government’s agent for authorising subsidies, has withheld its approval of the Dunarnan street cottages because it is not satisfied with the council’s proposal to use plasterboard dividing walls. The City Council believes these walls, which substantially

reduce the cost of small blocks, to be safe and satisfactory; and the by-laws have been altered to permit plaster-board walls in small blocks of flats generally. The housing committee of the City Council seems to have good reason to complain of a dictatorial attitude by the Health Department, which apparently wants to hold up the work until it has had the opportunity to see whether similar walls which are being put into some units in Marshland road are satisfactory. The interference has already held up the Dunarnan street project for five months, which should cause as much concern to the Minister of Housing as to the City Council When speaking in Wellington last September Mr Rae said that under the subsidy scheme accommodation for 2248 persons had been provided; as much again was needed to make any appreciable reduction in the number required. Mr Rae should step in and insist that the difference be composed without delay.