RAILWAY HOUSES

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 143, 21 June 1927, Page 10

RAILWAY HOUSES

NEW WORKERS' SCHEME

SETTLEMENT AT NGAIO

20-ACEE PTJECHASE

Negotiations have just been completed by the Railway Department for tho purchase of about twenty acres of land at Ngaio for the purpose of establishing a sottlement for railway workers, and an immediate start is to be made

upon the development of the area.

The land acquired is wha,t is known as Aplin's Farm, and lies between Colway street and Ngatoto street, about seven minutes' walk north of the Ngaio Station. It is practically the only remaining available land in Nguio of sufficient size for large settlement purposes, and is eminently suited to a residential scheme, as it has a steady fall in slope from east to west. Plans for the development of the area have already been approved both by the Director of Town Planning (Mr. E. B. Hammond), the City Council, and the Ngaio and Khandallah Progressive League. Tho first work will be the reading of the block. This will be carried out according to the best city standard. A main road, fifty feet in width, will serve the greater part of the block, and side streets will give access to other sections in rear. The formation work will be carried out by the Department in conjunction with the City Council, which is to form a short length of road, and when the reticulation is completed there will be two main thoroughfares in a- v district which at present is rather badly roaded. As the roading operations will bo a fairly lengthy contract, on account of the necessity for allowing time after the first cutting for the ground to settle before tho kerbing and channelling is put in, it is expected that it will bo at least six months before any building operations commence.

EIGHTY FIVE-ROOMED HOUSES.

Tho property is being cut up by tho Railway Department into about a hundred sections, each approximately onesixtli of an acre in area and having a frontage of about 45 feet. As already stated, the general lay-out of roads and houses will be on approved town-plan-ning lines. About eighty houses aro to be built by the Department for letting to railway employees, the scheme having been formulated particularly with a view to tho convenience of shiftmen stationed at Wellington who aro working broken time. Tho honours will bo iivc-roomed factory-cut workmen's cottages on similar lines to those Which the Department has been erecting uuder tho workers' settlement scheme at Lower Hutt. All will have practically the same ground plan, but in order to give variety in the outward appearance of tho dwellings five or six different elevations will be used. The houses are to be let at a weekly rental on the basis of one day's pay, the conventional rate charged by tho Railway Department in connection with its workers' settlements. In every respect, tho dwellings will bo reasonably up to date, and they will be connected with the usual city services—electric light, water, and drainage.

It is understood that the purchase price of tho property was about £10,000.