“House Building In Excess Of Demand”

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30073, 6 March 1963, Page 7

“House Building In Excess Of Demand”

(New Zealand Press Association) NAPIER, March 5. New Zealand was building houses in excess of the annual demand in all but a few problem areas such as Wellington, the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) said in Napier this morning. The Dominion, with an average 3| persons a home, was one of the best-housed nations in the world.

Mr Holyoake said the Government had neither imposed sudden curbs on house building nor intended taking special measures to boost it. He was addressing the annual conference ■ of the Master Builders’ Federation. Mr Holyoake said the applications for State rental homes had fallen to almost one-fifth of the 1950 demand. Applications last November numbered 9400, of which 3350 were urgent. Almost of the urgent applications were in the Wellington district—one of the major problem housing areas. “In all othei; districts there are little more than 2000 urgent applications to meet this year. Half will be new State houses. The other half will be existing units that are given up by their tenants and became available for reletting.” Mr Holyoake said there were always difficulties in providing the right-sized houses in the right localities at the time they were needed. “It will never be possible to satisfy every urgent application immediately. But the fact remains that the number of houses available for letting is well in excess of the number of urgent cases.” Mr Holyoake said applications for Stat'e Advances loans had dropped 1400 (or 9.5 per cent.) last year. Authorisation tor 3 per cent, loans had dropped by more than £3,000,000 and loans under the family benefit capitalisation scheme had dropped £1,000,000.. Mr Holyoake said the easing in demand for houses was only temporary. The population was increasing rapidly

and there were 20,000 marriages a year. Violent ups and downs in the building industry must be avoided. He said a record 24,300 houses had been completed in the last March year, and would only be about 1000 fewer this year. The 1953 housing conference had set a target of 208,000 houses for the next 10 years. It had erred on the generous side. But, even so, the actual figure of about 203,000 would not be far short of the target. Mr Holyoake said the National Housing Council was to be called together again to set targets for the next 10 years.