Over Eight Hundred State Houses Planned For Corstorphine Area

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26849, 13 August 1948, Page 4

Over Eight Hundred State Houses Planned For Corstorphine Area

More than 250 State houses in the Corstorphine housing settlement are now completed and occupied. This latest Government housing area, when finished, will be a town in itself, for it will contain upwards oE 800 homes—nearly twice as many as in the Wakari district, where 450 State dwellings were built. A school, a church, blocks of shops, a community centre, playing areas and many other amenities are included in the major plan.

The total number of houses planned for the Corstorphine area includes 61 on Calton Hill and others to be erected on land facing Riselaw road, towards its junction with the Main South road. There is a considerable area of land here yet to be subdivided. There are 120 houses in the block still under construction, and as these are completed further buildings will be commenced. Reticulation of water, light and power is keeping pace with the “settlement which is spreading to the brow of the hill and many of the houses overlook Concord and Green Island. At present, the homes have that very new appearance inseparable from such a settlement, but as time passes and shrubs and trees are planted and flourish, the completed picture should be an attractive one; x While steady progress is being made with this new settlement, contractors are continually facing grave problems. Mr A. Mitchell, of Mitchell Bros., Ltd., one of the firtps engaged in building

State houses at Corstorphine, told the Daily Times yesterday of the difficulties encountered in the trade at present. Dry timber for flooring and for interior finishing work was coming forward in very small quantities and to a certain extent this was holding up the rapid completion of some houses, Mr Mitchell said. Bricks were also in short supply, and whereas formerly 50 per cent, of the houses built were of wood, the percentage now was slightly higher. Asbestos shingles for outer walls were also being used. - Another problem which confronted the builder to-day, he added, was how to secure sufficient nails. At one time these were ordered in two and threeton lots, but now supplies came forward by the hundredweight when procurable at all. Much of the Interior finishing work of the houses being built to-day, Mr Mitchell said, was done with various types of wallboard, such as pinex and hard wallboard. Fibrous plaster sheets for walls or ceilings were unprocurable in the city at present, he said.