A move for the better?

Press, 5 March 1988, Page 9

A move for the better?

PA [ | Hamilton Aucklanders; ’ living in squalid conditions should be encouraged to buy homes in towns dike Tokbroa where mortgage repayments were cheaper than city rents, said the Opposition spokesman on housing, [’ Mr Roger

McClay. ’ The Government should be finding out now which families! were willing to move from Auckland to the provinces’ as the first step in boosting economic development of provincial centres,! Mr McClay said during a tour of houses’on the market in Tokoroa;.

“In the short term; it would only be an administrative [exercise to point out that here there are houses ’and in Auckland there [are people,” ; he said.

But in the long term the only way to; 'encourage people ;to move from the city was to give them jobs to go tb, he said. The Mayor of Tokoroa, Mr Jim Elder, prompted Mr McClay’s visit ; by offering the town’s spare

houses als an answer to the sub-standard overcrowding' in Auckland. Most i were in the $40,000 Io $50,000 price range apd would qualify for a Housing Corporation loan, i vyith community houses and pensioner flats available! at low rents, Mr Elder said.

Although the town ran the ijiskj of increasing its social and social welfare problems, the offer would help! People in need of housing; and reverse the trend of people leaving the ’rural areas for the city.' j He fold Mr McClay Tokoroa’s facilities could cope with, a population of 25,000 compared.with the present) 17,000. Real i estate agents accompanying Mr McClay on hisj tour said that already low-income earners throughout the North Island,! were coming to Tokoroa to buy cheap houses!

But j they said houses were not selling well and things ! were not expected ; to improve soon. I