STATE HOUSES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVIII, Issue 18572, 26 November 1920, Page 4

STATE HOUSES.

RAILWAY DEPARTMENT BUSY-

TOWN PLANNING IDEALS. TFrom Our Correspondents.] WELLINGTON, November 25. Until tho Railway Department took up a housing scheme about a year ago, there were difficulties in getting lauwaymen to transfer to some of the larger centres, owing to the scarcity and dearness of houses. Tho General Manager (Mr R- W. M’Villy) set about a general housing scheme for the employees planning on a comprehensive scale for quantity production from tno Department’s own timber mills and loinery factory. It has taken time to get tho housing factory with its specialised machinery which had to be imported, but this is all on order, and tho site of the factory is laid out near Frankton Junction railway station, where there will also bo a largo railway settlement, planned in accordance with the enlightened ideals of town planners, who believe in ample space for public utilities and recreation, and pleasant surroundings for the dwellings. Without waiting for tho factory which is to turn out houses ready to nail together—a popular form of dwelling in America—the Department has been building m various parts of tho North Island. It has nearly fifty houses in occupation in Wellington, the building all having been done since the Inauguration of tho scheme, and it will have a total of a hundred new houses, at the present rate of progress, by March 31. When the full scheme, including the factory, is in operation, it is expected that three hundred houses per annum will bo the rate of production. The non-railway worker will probably envy the occupiers of railway houses when he knows that the Department charges as rent one day’s pay per week, regardless of the smallness of the pay, or the size of the house. Thus it gives some special encouragement to tjie large family. There are thirty-eight houses under construction in Wellington, fourteen at Frankton Junction, six at Mamaku, six at Lyttelton; and building will soon commence also at Taumarunui, Taihape and To Kuiti. The land purchased for railway dwellings at Taumarunui is seventy acres in oxtent v and has a fine frontage to the river, with a large scenic bush reserve at the back. The Frankton area covers eighty acres, including the factory site. The subdivision is completely surrounded with' trees, and it is intended to have many beauty spots distributed throughout the area, so placed that the street views will be free from the monotony of unrelieved front fences. A central reserve for recreation is five and a half acres m extent. All tho corners of streets are rounded, so as to improve the vision for trafficTile streets, while of full sixty-six feet, will be macadamised only for twenty feet in the centre. Then on either side will be grass lawns, tree planted, of a width of fifteen feet, and footpaths eight feet' wide. The Bame general lines of planning are being followed in laying out tho fllarton Junction railway settlement of forty-eight aores. Here the land is of excellent quality for gardens, and the sections are quarter-acres, to giro ample scope for gardening. Belts of trees have already been well established. The central feature of the plains a large recreation reservo, with a. site for a pavilion. Sixty houses are to be placed on the land, and at least onethird of the area has been set aside for the common benefit. Tho Department has hftv acres of land for dwellings at Obakune, which is a busy section of tbe iVlain Trunk line; sixty acres at Te Kuiti, and thirty-nine acres at Taihnpe. Its land purchases and the subsequent planning have become so extensive that a snocial survey branch of the Railway Housing Branch has been set up.