FEWER HOUSES

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 113, 6 February 1935, Page 11

FEWER HOUSES

Shortage in Wellington SIR HAROLD BEAUCHAMP’S SURVEY Brief reference to the housing problem in Wellington was made by Sir Harold Beauchamp, chairman of directors of the Wellington Gas Company Ltd., in his address to shareholders at the annual general meeting yesterday. , , The decline in general building had bi ought about a shortage of houses in Wellington, said Sir Harold Beauchamp. During the past year only 163 new dwellings in tlie city were made available for use, and it was estimated that there was a shortage of some 10.000 houses in the Dominion. It was generally conceded that inactivity in the building trade was closely related to unemployment, and for that reason the Unemployment Board had, during the past two years, introduced building subsidy schemes. These had been successful in stimulating the building and related trades for a period, with a resultant decrease in the registrations of unemployed. With the object of obtaining a still further decrease in the registration figures, and at the same time assisting, nrore particularly with the housing problem, the Unemployment Board introduced in July last a'purely housebuilding subsidy scheme. Under this a subsidy of 1/- per square foot of all totally enclosed floor space might be obtained, with the provision that the subsidy payable should not exceed 8 per cent, of the contract price, or should not be in excess of £BO for any one house.

Very pleasing results were being achieved, as up to the present 2744 applications had been approved, the capital expenditure involved being £1,774.194, and the men to be engaged numbering some 11,500. Qf the total cost of the works approved £1,543,548 represented the amounts which would be paid directly and indirectly* in wages.

It was noted, however, that while excellent results had been achieved in other centres, the opportunity offered by the scheme hardly seemed to have been appreciated to the full extent in Wellington. Toward the end of November returns based on the number of new houses per 1000 of population revealed Wellington’s figure as .74 as against 1.23 for Dunedin.

One factor which had tended to retard the progress of the scheme was the general uncertainty and difficulty of finance, and to overcome this to some extent, the Unemployment Board hau completed negotiations with the building societies, as a result of which these societies would now advance up to 80 per cent, of the valuation of the property to approved clients. As the tendency recently had been to restrict advances to 60 per cent., this arrangement should result in more people being able to take advantage of the scheme. ~