HOUSING SCHEME

Grey River Argus, 11 February 1938, Page 10

HOUSING SCHEME

A pressing housing need is to be met by the Government Housing Construction Department by the erection of pensioners’ flats in all the main centres. The first of these flats will be built at Point Chevalier, Auckland, immediately, and they will be made available to tenants at a rental commensurate to their means.

As shown in the ground plan, the flats will be built in blocks of four under one roof. Each flat will comprise a living room measuring 12ft. by 13ft., with , a bed recess off it, sft by 9ft. There will be an entrance lobby, a small kitchen, Bft. by 6ft. 6in., fully equipped for two persons to have a meal in, and a bathroom. There will also be fuel cupboard, linen press and wardrobe, .three power-plugs and internal radio and earth plugs. Each flat will have a fireplace, and two will have sitting-out verandahs. There will be a hot-water, system and either a gas ’or an electric range. For each block of four flats there will be a communal laundry. The. flats to be built at Point Chevalier will be about 200 yards from the tram line, and the policy of (he department will be to' build them all within easy walking distance of trams or other forms of transport. The fittings will be of the ■ same standard of quality as those, in the houses that have been erected by the State under its housing scheme. “We can’t stop building contractors saying that they can build houses cheaper than the Government can, but we can expose their inaccuracies and suppressions of fact when they. commit themselves to actual figures,” said Mr. J. A'. Lee, referring to what he described as recent propaganda against the Housing Department.

“Take that Christchurch case in which Mr. Piesse claimed that a client of his was buying at a cost of 24s 9d a week a house that he compared to a Government house at £1 12s a week. He quite omitted to say that the rent of the Government house is subject to a rebate for good tenancy which brings the rent down to 29s 6d, but that was not the only or the worst inaccuracy. We happen to have the true figures of the cost of Mr. Piesse’s house. The cost of the section was £245, and the contract price of the house £1,175, so that the total cost was £1,420. In estimating his weekly cost he omitted the capital charges on £295. basing his estimate on the unpaid balance of a State Advances loan of £1,125. And he made no allowance for'rates, insurance or maintenance.

“The annual cost of the Piesse house is as follows: Interest and principal at 4 1-8 per cent, on £1420, £B3; rates £l2, insurance £2, maintenance £l4 13s, a total of £lll 13s, or £2 3s a week, not 24s 9d, as Mr. Piesse calculated, a difference of 18s a week. “The six-roomed Government house selected by Mr. Piesse would have a rental value to a good tenant of from 27s 6d to 30s, according to the amenities contained therein. In the Government house all charges are met—rates, insurance, maintenance—out of the rent.