"BAD TO WORSE"

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 95, 19 October 1934, Page 12

"BAD TO WORSE"

HOUSING CONDITIONS

PLANNING OF TOWNS

RELIEF PAY AND RENT

I "It is common knowledge, not only that there is a serious housing shortage in New Zealand, but that housing conditions generally, through lack of proper maintenance, lack of zoning, and overcrowding, are rapidly going from bad to worse," said Mr. S. Blackley in his presidential address at the annual meeting of the Town Planning Institute of New Zealand yesterday. Mr. Blackley said ho did not suggest that even the worst conditions which could be found in New Zealand were comparable with the slum conditions in England, for instance, but he did think it was time that the institute struck a warning note and did what it could as an educational body to point out the lesson and the remedy. "With us it is not purely an economic question," he said. "There are problems of construction, having regard, to the fact that we are an earthquake-ridden country, for which a solution must be found." Mr. Blackley referred to a proposal to hold a Dominion conference and exhibition next year as a fitting climax to the educational work which had been carried out by the institute and its branches during the last five years. "The greatest difficulty we have to contend with in New Zealand in promoting a better understanding of the aims and objects of town planning is the isolated position we occupy,-" he said. "In Europe and America conferences and exhibitions are held at frequent intervals for the exchange of j knowledge and experience between the different countries. Those of us who ! occasionally travel abroad and see the material progress which is being made in other countries in the improvement of living and working conditions in the towns and cities and the scientific organisation of industry and transport., are inclined to be somewhat impatient with the lack of .understanding and progress in such matters in our own country. I feel that we could go on writing and lecturing for the next twenty- years without obtaining any material results, whereas we could probably do more to educate and arouse public opinion to our own deficiencies by a pictorial representation of tho things which are being done; elsewhere." A POLITICAL QUESTION. The necessity for educating the public in the matter of town planning was urged by other members. Mr. 0. A. Hart, Wellington City Engineer, said that the aims and objects of town planning were sacred, but they struck at the most vital vested interests. The question was intensely political.' It was inevitable that so far as the objects of the institute were concerned there must be a great deal of education among tho public, and this was the most important function that could bo laid on such a body. : : Mr. J. W. Mawson, ex-Director of Town Planning, said he agreed with one man who said, "You will never get anywhere with town planning in this country unless you make it a political question." • Mr. A. E. Galbraith (Christchurch) said that to encourage town planning tho institute should go outside to the rural districts and enlist that body of agricultural opinion which was so strongly represented in the present .Government. "There is one way which shows a great deal of promise, and that is through the unemployment ques^ tion," he said. "The Government has its own ideas about unemployment, and the different members of the community have their own ideas also. What is needed is to get down to a common basis so as .to get the best results from the unemployed. We are a long way from that position. The psychological element comes largely into the question. It is necessary that every individual should be studied and that "ho should be given the opportunity to function in a proper manner, not only in, his own interests, but in the interests of the community. In other words, he should be kept above the broad-lino so far as the community can afford." HOUSE KENTS. Speaking on the question of housing, Mr. Galbraith said it was impossible for a relief worker to pay rents of los, 20s, and 25s per week. Married mifn were earning from 30s to £3, and they could not possibly pay more than 10s a week, and some could not even, do that. If under the present system of capitalism they had to meet that situation, it meant that a four-roomed bouse must cost about £380.f0r a rent of about 10s a week. It was the duty of the institute to concentrate their efforts on methods of relief for the unemployed.