HOUSING SURVEY IN BOROUGH

North Canterbury Gazette, Volume 7, Issue 32, 27 August 1937, Page 5

HOUSING SURVEY IN BOROUGH

Latest Progress Report FOURTEEN DWELLINGS ARE OVERCROWDED Four hundred and six dwellings in the Borough have now been inspected by the officers conducting the housing survey in Rangiora. These include 14 dwellings classed as overcrowded. The figures submitted to Wednesday night’s meeting of the Borough Council by one of the officers, Mr E. A. Chivers, were as follows: Houses Private Dwellings 377 Apartment Houses ... ... 6 Boarding Houses ... ... 6 Combined with Business Premises ... ... ... ... 11 Houses surveyed ... ... 400 Dwelling Units Satisfactory ... ... ... 289 Unsatisfactory but repairable 110 Recommend demolition ... 5 *Recommend condemnation as dwellings 2 406 * Include houses in good physical condition but unsuitable as dwellings for reasons such as lack of air space as required under the Municipal Corporations Act. The officers averaged 24.6 inspections daily. They have been taking advantage of the fine weather to push ahead with the outdoor part of the work.

Wealth of Information The information secured about each (house is used in rating it as satisfactory, unsatisfactory but repairable, unsatisfactory and impossible to repair, overcrowded, etc. Inquiries about the ages of occupants will give the Government an indication of what prospects there may be of young people at present living in a house with older people, who would be likely to demand houses if they were available.. Other inquiries will secure information about the preference of residents for certain districts or areas, as being near their work, or place of recreation. Still more show how many people are living in other people’s homes (prospective tenants of new houses), how homes are served with the conveniences of life, what vacant sections each town contains, and which are suitable for building. On the plans on which the officers are now working each different category of house will be shown in a different colour. Pink signifies satisfactory houses, yellow means the houses unsatisfactory but repairable, and purple indicates they are past repair. If they are overcrowded they arc coloured in sienna.

The plans will be available to the Borough Council, which will have an easy and very accurate reference to every condition of housing in the Borough.

Such institutions as churches are not included in the survey, which is interested only in dwelling units. The authorities in Wellington to whom will be entrusted the task of analysing all the information collected will not know the names of any of the occupants of the houses included. To them the personal particulars will apply to numbers only, and the identity and private interests of the owners and residents will be preserved confidentially by the local authorities.