HOUSING NEEDS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 80, 2 October 1944, Page 6

HOUSING NEEDS

SPECIAL BOARD SUGGESTED

The establishment of a housing construction board is advocated by Mr R. A. Large, president of the Wellington branch of the Real Estate Institute in his annual report. "The Government is doing its best under very difficult conditions, but the time has arrived when, with the exception of the war effort, housing should be given priority in every respect, and it should as far as possible, be freed from political control," he states. "A housing construction board should be constituted to take full control of housing. It should make/a complete survey of present housing costs, givine special attention to cutting out sales tax on all building material and other S T h6re J 1 is, thouSht that costs c£ uld .£ c reduced; and should consider the present output of houses in relation to the number of hands employed in the industry. It was- his opinion that one hundred men employed, by, say, four or five private, builders, would turn out more work than the same number of men underone control. Building facilities should oe given to all returned servicemen «£«n«Un^?P le uWho own a building section. All timber and other accessories should be supplied at special rates to returned servicemen and young People who are . building their own S , Two or more expert men should be sent overseas to make full SS 1? 0 the suitability of other mateiials for housing construction. f,S i- s _.v? h materials were available immediately after the war, the Gov! wnT^-flllo^ conti™e construction woni?o th thlS nfw material, which Sol leave F or?. timber available for pnvate construction.