State housing run by new corporation

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33665, 15 October 1974, Page 3

State housing run by new corporation

New Zealand's biggest landlord and owner of real estate, the Stale Advances Corporation, yesterday officially became the I lousing (Corporation.

The corporation, which merges the housing division of the Ministry of Works and Development with the State Advances Corporation, will plan the country’s housing development a n d coordinate its housing rei sources. ' The merger brings both (administration and construction facilities under one roof. The corporation is intended. |to stabilise the building inIdustry, avoiding the succession of booms and declines I that are cited as being responible for the inability of ! New Zealand to house its I people when demand is highest. MANAGER ■ The first director-general jand chairman of the corporation is Mr E. J. Babe, who has been general manager of! the State Advances Corporation since 1971. Mr Babe assumes office at. (a time when the corporation I has 52,000 tenants and a (turn-over of s3oom a year. ! The corporation carries on the work started by the creation of the Department of Housing in 1936 when the: then Government let contracts for the construction of( the first State houses, which i were allocated by ballot. The number of people who sought inclusion in the bal-l lots was surprisingly low because they thought the!' houses would be like motorcar cases with windows. The !

first State house built at Miramar was completed in September. 1937, and the'original occupants, Mr and Mrs D. McGregor, still live there COAT OFF The Prime Minister (Mt Savage) opened the house, and took off his coat to help the McGregors move in their possessions. The first 15,000 State houses had been built bv 1943, when housing became the responsibility of the housing division of the Ministry ■of Works. In 1950, the housing division was responsible for the (construction of a quarter of all the houses built in New Zealand. That year the Government invited State house occupants to buy the homes, and since then 76,000 State houses have become privately owned. The Housing Corporation’s immediate job is to try to satisfy the demand from 17,000 applicants for State houses. The present allocation for the construction of such houses is sssm. Escape bid East German border guards shot and injured a young man trying to escape to West Berlin yesterday. The man. aged about 20, was hit in the leg, and border guards carried him away after the incident, which occurred opposite the Neukoelln district of West Berlin, in the American I sector of the city.—West Berlin, Oct. 14.