EFFECT OF MOTORWAYS Big loss of homes in Wellington

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32775, 27 November 1971, Page 20

EFFECT OF MOTORWAYS Big loss of homes in Wellington

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, November 25.

About 10,000 people would have lost their homes in Wellington in the face of motorway development and the expansion of the Victoria University, Wellington Polytechnic and the Government centre, said the chairman of the Wellington City Council’s housing committee (Cr D. G. Porter) today.

He gave this figure to emphasise what he described as a desperate housing situation in Wellington. The houses being demolished for these works were of one type of badlyneeded housing mainly [rooming houses and con- ' verted flats, he said. At present the waiting list for city council rental flats was approaching 1200. “At this accelerating rate, the waiting list will soon be containing one in every hundred people in the city,”! he said. “For the size of the population the housing situation here is worse than ever.”

j Young people were the I worse affected by the demo- - lition programme and he predicted “grim conditions” - for young people and s students next year. Cr Porter said the coun- / cil’s building programme had - to be doubled if it was to cope with the demand. Tbe - city council would renew its II efforts to gain more Govern- ’ ment assistance for subsidies ! for public rental flats and ,[urban renewal projects. t The council might send a /'city housing officer to Auckland and Christchurch to : gather evidence of the com- • parative housing situations i for further approaches to the Government, he said.