STATE HOUSING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23092, 18 July 1938, Page 11

STATE HOUSING

COST OF BUILDINGS REPLY BY MR. J. A. LEE STAFF'S WORK DEFENDED A reply to remarks by a Wellington architect regarding the alleged high cost of houses built under the State schemes has been made by Mr. J. A. Lee, Parliamentary Under-Secretary in Charge of Housing. He draws attention to a reported statement that, at a meeting between architects and the heads of the State Housing Department two years ago, he had said that the Government-built four-roomed houses would cost £390 each. "This statement is untrue," he says.. "On the occasion in question I mentioned no price whatsoever. The cost of our dwellings was not discussed, and the architects present were enthusiastic in their offers of support.

"A statement also appears to the effect that a house of 81)0 square feet was costing £llOO. That statement is absolutely untrue. No house of 800 square feet, built in any part of the Dominion, has cost anything like £llOO including all overhead. The statement regarding the house of ICOO square fget is also absolutely untrue. "The most regrettable feature of the article in question is the attack on the staff of my department, who are presented to readers as a team of idlers. Attacks of a political nature I can weather and reply to, but attacks of this nature upon the staff of my department are unfair in the extreme. Actually, the staff of the Housing Department has been working under severe pressure. The department is very badly understaffed, and, far from officers being overpaid, officers have been drawn away from my department by ofl'ers of higher pay from private architects."