BUILDING NEW HOMES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21560, 3 August 1933, Page 10

BUILDING NEW HOMES

DUNEDIN MAYOR'S SCHEME PROPOSED 300 HOUSES [BY TKLEGRAPH —TRESS ASSOCIATION] DUNEDIN, "Wednesday A local housing scheme was endorsed by a public meeting held last evening. The scheme was propounded by the Mayor, the Rev. E. T. Cox, and he intends to submit it to the Government and the City Council. The proposal is to build 300 houses at a cost of £9OO each. Under this scheme, the Mayor said, a purchaser would insure himself for £7OO and repay the loan by weekly instalments of 25s over a period of 20 years. A worker could reduce the loan for a house costing £450, paying 12s (3d a week. It would mean the expenditure in wages of £90,000 and would employ 600 men for a year on full-time work, and would create employment for 000 others in various activities.

The speaker estimated that £175 would be required for furniture. This would mean the employment or another MO men for a year. He estimated that 1..j00 men would be restored to industry by building MO houses at an outlay of £;i.30.000. He proposed to ask the Unemployment Board to contribute £•.'30,000 and the City Council £IO,OOO for carrying out the scheme. The meeting carried a resolution protesting against "the Government's illadvised policy of forcing married men into relief camps, where their earnings are insufficient to maintain a bare existence, and against exiling married , men from their wives and families, believing that this policy endangers the moral,' mental and physical well-being of rising generations." Applications continue to be received for the Unemployment Board's subsidy under the No. 5 scheme. To date. 271 applications, involving a proposed total expenditure of £172,300, have been forwarded to Wellington, where the board lias! approved of grants being made in IG2 cases. Among the, applications / there are plans for 89 new dwellings.