BUILDING HOMES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 102, 27 October 1938, Page 10

BUILDING HOMES

CITY HOUSING ACT

PROPOSALS EXPLAINED

USEFUL CONFERENCE

! The conference called yesterday afternoon by. the housing committee of the City Council between councillors and representatives of investment companies and lending institutions to discuss the City Housing Act, was, said the Deputy Mayor, Councillor M. F. Luckie, today, a useful and successful meeting. At the conclusion the representatives of the twelve qr fourteen financial institutions present expressed the unanimous opinion that the legislation was upon the right lines, and stated their willingness to co-operate cordially with.the City Council.

Councillor Luckie, as chairman in the absence of the Mayor through illness, said that the City Council was most anxious to lend assistance to people who wished to own theia homes, instead of renting houses. Unfortunately, Wellington had started from behind scratch in the first days of settlement, in that the city area was laid out in town acres and a great part of it sold in London to people who never came to New Zealand but who let the land on long building leases. The effect was still apparent today, and tenant-occupancy was a serious handicap to the proper development of Wellington. There need be no fear of slum conditions if people owned and lived in their own homes, said Mr. Luckie. A general explanation of the purposes of the Act and the proposals of the council for putting its powers under the Act into effect were given by the chairman and by Councillors M. Fraser and R. L. Macalister, who were the joint movers of the resolution which resulted in the drafting of the legislation. The main purpose of the Act, it was explained, was to authorise the council to advance sufficient to bridge the gap between, the two-thirds usually advanced by the investment companies and 90 per cent, of the total value of the security, the council either advancing the difference or guaranteeing it to the first mortgagee, so that any person desiring to build a house for himself would have to find only 10 per cent, of the value of land and building to be able to go ahead on exceedingly favourable terms. Following the general explanation, matters, of detail were discussed as they were raised by various speakers. The | company representatives unanimously I agreed to co-operate, as far as they Tiad 'authority from their principals, with tthe council. Ger# rally, approval was expressed of the idea underlying the legislation as ,a means whereby the acute housing shortage in Wellington might be in large part overcome. Further, it was remarked that the Wellington Housing Act might very well serve as < a pattern which other municipalities throughout the Dominion might very well follow.