STATE HOUSING

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 301, 16 September 1936, Page 10

STATE HOUSING

♦ Lower Hutt Councillors’ Criticism . MINISTERS IN REPLY An assurance that nothing wqijfd be done by the Government to spoil the “garden, suburb” of Lower Hutt was given by the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage, when commenting yes-, terday o» the discussion that took place at a meeting of the Lower Hutt Borough Council the previous night concerning the Government’s housing proposals. At the meeting of the council it was stated that there was no housing shortage in Lower Hutt, and that the “mass production” of houses in that suburb was undesirable. “We are not going to inflict anything on Lower Hutt or on anybody else, but we are going to build houses,” said Mr. Savage. “The houses we will build will be real homes, and nobody will be able to point at them and say, ‘They are Government houses.’ We are not going to build houses according to one pattern. We realise that we are facing a big'job, but we w‘,’l do it I venture to say that the houses we will build in Lower Hutt will be on a par with what are there now. The Government will also see to it that the sections on which the houses are built will be large enough to enable the people living in them to have a decent garden.” When invited to comment regarding the payment of rates on State-owned houses, the Minister of Finance, Hon. W. Nash, said he had made the point quite clear when moving the second reading of the Staff Advances Corporation Act in the House of Representatives on May 28 last. He then stated: “Our proposals provide for the rates to be paid to the local authority when the house is let; so that in respect of properties of which the State Is mortgagee in possession, or of which the State is agent for the mortgagor, that are let at ordinary rentals, full rates will be paid to the local authorities concerned” LOWER HUTT MAYOR’S VIEW Private Enterprise Could Have Dealt With Problem “It is quite clear that private enterprise could easily have dealt with the problem if its advice and assistance had been required,” said Mr. J. W, Andrews, Mayor of Lower Hutt, in enlarging upon the remarks upon the Government’s housing scheme he had made at Monday evening’s meeting of the borough council. The Government’s scheme for the year provided for some 300 houses in Lower Hutt and 90 at Miramar, and these were just over a month’s possible production from the existing factories. Great repercussions had followed the announcement that houses would be available at from 12/6 to 17/6 a week, and already hundreds of houses that had been on the point of commencement had been cancelled. Architects and builders in many parts of the Dominion were disturbed.

“Unemployment figures had commenced to increase, and there were indications that the numbers would be swelled very considerably within the next few weeks. The period between now and the commencement of the Government scheme was going to be a most difficult one. For some months now there had been practically no unemployed joiners, carpenters, plasterers, and others of the allied building groups, but already they were beginning to look for jobs again. . The full effects of the destruction of confidence in that big industry would not show immediately in Lower Hutt, but they were already apparent in many North Island towns. The Minister was non-committal on the matter of the working of the large joinery factories, and declined to state whether they were to be operated by the Government or leased to a con tractor, Owners of joinery factories were feeling very uneasy at the duplication of plant when the present plant was quite capable of carrying out all the work. Unless the Government met all the charges a private contractor had to meet the competition would be most unfair.