CITY COUNCIL INTEREST

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 8, 9 July 1935, Page 10

CITY COUNCIL INTEREST

MOTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

There are no less than three motions on the question of housing for discussion toy the City Council, possibly at Thursday's meeting, but it is probable that they will be merged into one. . ■ ■ , ■. Councillor C. H. Chapman, who is chairman of the Health Committee, some time ago gave notice of his intention to move that a housing committee should be appointed to consider the feasibility of arranging a comprehensive housing scheme, with particular reference to the removal of slum areas and that the Government should be approached to ascertain to what extent it will financially support such a scheme. The Mayor (Mr. T. C. A. Hislop) has also indicated his intention to move that a special committee should be set up to pay particular attention to housing, as well as to report upon various matters of city improvement and the most suitable way of marking the city's centenary. The third motion has been put in by Councillor R. McKeen, who desires to see an immediate inquiry made into the extent of bad housing and overcrowding in the city. He suggests also that the Government Health Department should be invited to co-oper-ate by appointing an officer to take part in the investigation, and that the committee should report to both the council and the Government. INTEREST GROWING. Some time ago reports upon the feasibility of a large-scale housing scheme were obtained by the council from certain of its officers, and generally, it is understood, the reports upon the particular scheme suggested were not. favourable, but from the remarks of councillors (other than Labour members of the council who have all along pressed for some action) it seems likely that there will be general support for a full investigation, particularly in view of references made by the Government some time ago of its lively interest in the subject of housing. During the recent municipal election campaign references were made by some speakers to the advisability of some relaxation of the city bylaws to permit of the building of homes more cheaply, and though there is probably a fair measure of support for this proposal at the council table, there is bound to be strong opposition from other councillors who contend that the bylaws represent the result of a long fight against the bad conditions and shoddy buildirfg which characterised homes and cottages which today have become the shacks and hovels against which the most

to permit such construction again would simply be to lay up a greater store of bad housing in the future.

Many references have been made t< the great housing and tenement (mod crn tenements, not the hideous slun tenements of the earlier city build ing) schemes in Great Britain and ir Europe, but there is between the land ownership conditions of Great Britair 'and New Zealand a vast difference There great blocks of city land an held by one owner; here there an very few undivided blocks of an> size within the city proper and a majoi scheme is therefore almost ruled out Moreover, the Wellington City Bylawi do not today permit of the erectior of group houses (as distinct from flats] beyond semi-detached houses witt