Council Housing At £lm A Year

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31018, 25 March 1966, Page 14

Council Housing At £lm A Year

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, March 24. Huge housing development in Wellington is expected to be announced soon.

Housing is likely to get a boost from a report expected to be presented to the Minister of Housing (Mr Rae) next month.

In an effort to beat the highest building costs in the country, high rents, and lack of easily developed building land, the Wellington. City Council plans to spend £1,000,000 a year on housing the capital city’s population.

Among the problems it faces are high labour costs, unstable values, lack of sites capable of being economically developed, scattered development, and lack of Government co-operation. The main cause of the high cost of building in Wellington was labour said the chairman of the council’s housing committee (Cr. Porter). “The wages have to be high to keep labour here and productive time is cut down because of the travelling involved,” he said. Much land could not be used because of the lack of

high level water supplies in Wellington. “We could provide space foranother 20,000 people just by putting in high level reservoirs,” Cr. Porter said. In . a bid to beat the rent racketeer, the council was redeveloping older areas of the city. His committee was of the opinion that the Government could take a greater interest in housing in Wellington. MORE ACUTE

The problem would become more acute when more houses were demolished to make way for the Government centre. ‘The council wants to establish the principle that no house shall be pulled down unless another goes up.”

“I know we will have to fight to get this,” Cr. Porter said. He said he would like to see the Government taking a greater interest in housing for its own employees.

In spite of all this, the Wellington City Council was doing more to house the city’s population than all other

cities in New Zealand together. The Housing Department of the council, which would soon be as big in scope as ‘ the council’s civil engineering department, was geared to spend £1,000,000 a year for the next three years. At present the council has 30 land development schemes at various stages of progress. Cr. Porter said that the council itself took on development works which would not be economic for private enterprise.

As well as bringing in land and building homes, the council helps people to buy them. It was the first in the field with a scheme to provide home buyers with 90 per cent of the finance required.