HOUSING SCHEMES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 2 September 1924, Page 7

HOUSING SCHEMES.

VALUE OF CO-OPERATION

CO-PARTNERSHIP TENANTS

A POPULAR METHOD IN ENGLAND

Among co-operative housing schemes now in operation in England, not the least successful has been that of the Ealing Tenants, Ltd. Beginning with a sum of £SO collected by a few workers, together with £4OO advanced by one of their members in 1901, this society lias brought into being a movement in which/some 4000 houses have been built of a. total value of over £1,530,000. Dividends axe limited to 5 per cent. Any additional balance, states the London correspondent of the Chris, tian Science Monitor, is divided in the proportion of 20’ per cent, to the society and the balance to the tenants in the shape of a “rent dividend” to be used on internal decoration. The tenant is required to take up an investment in the society to an extent which must ultimately reach two years’ rent, but he is allowed time to find this minimum. Shares are also sold to the public, and funds raised on mortgage and from the Public Works Loan Commissioners.

As originally arranged, .the tenant paid h rent ranging from 6$ weekly up® ward, the average being well under 12s. He also paid all municipal dues upon the property, and was thus made to realise the financial effects of the local policy Avhich, as a voter, lie might help to bring into operation. A large number of societies have been formed on similar lines in different parts of. the British islands, and these are linked up through a, central society—Co-partner-ship Tenants —founded in 1906, which acts as builders’ merchants, gives advice, and exercises supervision. Picturesque and attractive garde'll suburbs have been built through the agency, of Co-partnership Tenants, the plans for considerable groups of dwellings being, treated as connected wholes, with eminently pleasing results; there is generous provision of open spaces, together with a limitation of from eight to twelve houses per acre. The operation of the Rent Restriction Act has made it necessary for the societies which are now building to modify their original system of letting at fixed rates on short tenancy agreements or on lease. Some houses, in consequence, are nowsold to the tenants or to the general public. At Ealing there are some vacant sites for fifty additional houses, hut hitherto these pioneers have not yet seen their way to start building under present changed ■ and changing conditions.

The tenant who remains on one of these co-partnership estates, although he does not become the owner of his house, secures the best possible equivalent, without being required to put down any considerable sum. Indeed, it may be said that the periodical instalments required to cover alike rent, interest, and repayment of capital cost are often less than would otherwise have had to be spent on rent elsewh.ere. A man puts his savings into his society, and thus becomes a capitalist upon V small scale, while hardly aware that this process is going on. ; In the beautiful old Georgian House in Bloosbury Square, once the home of Benjamin Disraeli, where the/central society now has its headquarters, the representative of the Christian Science Monitor heard from Mr. J. H. Stobart Greenhalgh, one of the original directors, about the early history of the society. The inspiration for it, Mr. Greenhalgh said, came from Mr Henry Vivian, now a member of the British House of Commons, who was then secretary of the' Labour Co-partnership Association. . The first committee consisted of three bricklayers, three plasterers, one barrister, one builder’s manager, one engraver., one photographer, and one secretary. Share money, amounting td £SO, ;wqs collected at the first meeting, and four evenings later £134. <

Meetings were held on the last Saturday in each month, and at one of them the momentous business was transacted of signing the conveyance to the society of its first piece of land. On this land the building of houses commenced. The cutting of the first sod was the occasion of a gathering, at which one of the speakers was Henry Demarest Lloyd, of the United States, who expressed the opinion that the society offered benefits which .no other scheme, municipal or voluntary, attempted to give. Letters of sympathy were also read from Albert, fifth Lord Grey, afterwards Governor-General of Canada; George Cadbury, founder of the Bournville settlement, and Alderman Thompson, author of the Housing Handbook.

From this on the movement has never looked back. Even during the war it was able to continue payment of regular dividends, to repay borrowed money, and to meet promptly all obligations. One of the achievements of which it is most justly proud has been its work on the Hampstead Garden Suburb, in which it has founded four daughter societies which are already responsible for some 1400 houses on its 700 acres, where, amid ideal surroundings, are attractive country homes for city workers, on the designing of which the best architectural * talent of England has been employed. Co-partnership Tenants now has a paid-up capital of over £400,000, . of .which £IOO,OOO is in shares and £300,000 in loan stock. Its board of directors consists of Henry Vivian, chairman ; W. Hutchins, deputy-chairman; Sir John Brunner, J. Stobart Greenhalgh, Earl Grey, and C. NapierClavering.