The Evening Star. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1924. HOUSING.

Evening Star, Issue 18811, 9 December 1924, Page 6

The Evening Star. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1924. HOUSING.

At last week’s meeting of the City Council a deputation from the Citizens’ Housing Committee presented a series of proposals. The gist of these is that at least one hundred houses should be pus m hand immediately, these to ho built of permanent material, at reasonable cost, under the supervision of a Housing Board representing the City Council and various unspecified public bodies, inis may look very well on paper, but it hardly stands analysis. Our experience of collaboration between local bodies forbids all expectation of despatch in anj matter calling for joint action. If a hundred houses are to be put in hand immediately—and the need for at least that number at the earliest possible date is indisputable—then it must not be under a Housing Board constituted as proposed by the deputation. The Mayor of Dunedin, perhaps awaro of the inability of members from different local bodies to work together harmoniously and expeditiously, told the deputation that he doubted whether tho council would favor the idea of a Housing Board. Thu deputation did not press the matter, and, if the complaisance of one member rightlv typifies the attitude of tho Citizens’ Housing Committee, tho Housing Board is really ft less vital part of tho scheme than the list of proposals would suggest. This seems to leave the matter in tho City Council’s hands. The problem to be solved being not merely the speedy erection of a hundred houses for a start, but their being made available for purchase or rent at prices which will bring thorn within the means of the expectant occupiers, the council is not to be envied its alleged responsibility, and can hardly be blamed if it hesitates to accept it. One can find good arguments to prove some moral obligation on the part of the City Corporation to build an equal number of habitable bouses to replace those which it may demolish in tho abolition of slums or in the conversion of a residential area for some pressing municipal purpose, and that obligation is all the more stringent when there is a great scarcity of houses. But that there is any call on the corporation to enter tiie housebuilding trade whenever the demand for homes exceeds (lie supply is a most disputable matter. Should a too-haslily-formed public opinion drive the council into the building trade, one possible result is what experiment on a small scale has already produced—the houses hang fire because their prime cost prohibits their being purchased or rented at figures which tbe homeless or under-housed can afford, and there is no real contribution to the solution of the housing problem. On the contrary, there is a slight addition to tho burden of tho rates, resultant on the houses remaining empty and their capital expenditure lying idle, or their being sold or let at a loss. Such loss must come out of the rates, and if it is multiplied by the council embarking on schemes running into hundreds instead of units tho annual rates must bo fixed at a higher amount in tho pound (or the valuations be inflated by tire city valuer), and this inevitably means a general pushing up of rates by private landlords, and the housing problem outcrops in much the same place.

Mr Tapley gave the deputation no promise at all as to the future. He spoke on what had already been done by the council—on tho whole not a very rosplendid record—and said “ the question would be given every consideration.” As a matter of fact, tho Dunedin City Council at present has its hands full enough. Not many days ago Cr Shaddock, writing in opposition to the raising of a loan for the Logan Park highway, pointed out that tho city had already authorised loans totalling £600,000 for roads, tramway extension, drainage, and further power provision at Waipori. That amount has now boon increased by £BO,OOO for the highway, and there is, as we pointed out recently, the very urgent matter of an adequate water supply to bo installed and financed. There is one loan of £30,000 which Ci: Shaddock includes among those authorised, but nob contributing to tho total of the £600,000 commitments. It is for housing. This, from a municipal standpoint, declared Cr Shacklock, is a leap in the dark. “If private individuals cannot build houses to let at a profit there is very little hope of tho city doing it,” ho wrote; and it is very difficult to gainsay him. The war practically put an end to the speculative builder, and it is in one way something to be grateful for that ho shows no sign of resurrection. But private enterprise is believed to be showing signs of revival now that the severity of Government taxation is being relaxed so as to permit of the taking up again of certain suspended activities. It is not unreasonable to hope that the urgent demand for housing will lead to the filling of the speculative builder’s vacant place by something more stable and reliable. There is in the agitation for a municipal housing scheme some symptom of assumption of the right to get something for nothing. It is an impossibility. If a tenant is to occupy a house really beyond his means, yet without a corresponding drain on thorn, someone else has to pay. Under a municipal housing scheme that someone else would embrace all those ratepayers whose thrift has enabled them to place and keep a roof above their heads. Thrift is still tho master key to house ownership or comfortable tenancy, and in most cases it involves sacrifices, such as the curbing of expenditure on personal adornment and on the chronic pursuit of amusemen