HOUSES BY MASS PRODUCTION

Evening Star, Issue 22272, 25 February 1936, Page 2

HOUSES BY MASS PRODUCTION

SCHEMES IN AUSTRALIA SUCCESS IN SYDNEY An early start will be made tbis year with the plan to build 130 homes on 21 acres of land at Tighe’s Hill, and it is expected that at least £2,000 a month will be spent in the initial stages (reports a Newcastle daily). The ultimate expenditure involved will bo more than £70,000. The plan is similar to one in Sydney, where, in a new suburb known as Eastlake, what is claimed to be the largest single building undertaking in Australia is in progress. The proposal is to build 276 homes on what was once a 50-acrc desert. Approval of the subdivision of land at Tighe’s Hill has been given, and £13.000 has already been spent by a local company in securing and preparing the land. If the plan is successful the building of homes on mass production lines can be expected. Modern roads, footpaths, guttering, and kerbing will be put down. The land was bought in 1925, but the depression intervened and the scheme was stood over. The present shortage of homes and the anticipation of an expansion of population has induced the company to go ahead. SPECULATION IN 1926. Tn 1926 Mr Vernon Anderson, who had been used to conducting big deals in cattle, made a speculative purchase of 50 acres of undulating sand at a corner of Rosebery racecourse. To his chagrin sandhills had not the same ready market as cattle, and for em;ht years they remained on his hands. Rut he never- lost faith in their possibyities. lacking only the capital to put 1/s idea into practice. At last ho approached the Mutual Life and Citizens’ Assurance Company with the sandhills' already subdivided into 276 building lots. Ho offered to finance and build the first half-dozen cottages himself. If they sold as readily as he was confident they would, would the company finance the rest of the £200,000 building scheme? SIX A MONTH. ( The first six cottages sold like hot cakes at prices ranging from £875 for a five-roomed to £960 for a six-roomed cottage. The company immediately went forward with the scheme, and today 84 cottages are completed or in

To maintain this schedule means that about 20 cottages are in various stages of completion at any one time, while a dozen new blocks are selected in advance and water is connected to them and plank roadways laid across their sands, so that directly a team of bricklayers becomes disengaged on the existing jobs it will not lose 10 minutes’ working time before getting on to the new job Economy has been the watchword throughout, implying the shrewd purchase of materials in bulk and the use of every possible man-hour on the job. RELAYS OF BRICKLAYERS. Bricklayers, for instance, are divided into three teams. Team one comes to the bare site and builds the foundations up to floor level. Having accomplished that, it picks up its trowels and hods and starts over again on the next empty block. But team two walks in as team one walks out, and carries the walls up to their full height. Directly it finishes, on marches a team of carpenters, who in a day erect the roof timbers. Tilers follow, and the roof is finished in another day. Team three of bricklayers only comes along when the cottage is approaching completion to put in brick window sills and other finishing touches. It is claimed that this mass production is responsible for a 10 or 16 per cent, saving—that one of these £875 cottages, individually erected in another suburb, would cost £I,OOO. SAND NUISANCE, Already tarred streets Slid the sprouting lawns and gardens of 84 cottages have minimised the sand nuisance. \ year ago a westerly breeze whipped face and hands with a million sharp sand particles, but the sandhills are nearly tamed now. Throughout the job, directly foundations have been laid it has been essential to lay turf around them to prevent the wind from eating away the sand from under the footings. It will still be a couple of years before the suburb is completely built. At present its appearance is not all it might be. There is not a tree on the 50 acres, although, as pavements are laid, avenues of trees will be planted along them. Most of the allotments, which average 44ft by 128 ft, have been cut at an angle to the streets, so that each cottage presents a front of facing brick and a shoulder of common brick to the passerby. ' ' '•

So Mr Anderson’s dream of a village on the sandhills is being realised. Prizewinning carnations have their roots in many a sandy backyard, f a store has been built, and an agitation has been started for a school for the 60 children already on the estate.