A MODEL VILLAGE

Southland Times, Issue 19458, 24 January 1925, Page 6

A MODEL VILLAGE

RAILWAYMAN’S UTOPIA. IDEAL RESIDENTIAL SETTLEMENT. HAMILTON, January 22. Out of a swamp slightly to the northwest side of the Frankton railway station there has arisen during the past two years, a thoroughly modern model village, in which all the houses, about 80 all told, are built of the best heart timber, cleanly painted, while each has one-fifth of an acre of land as a garden. The roadways are all put down in good material, while the footpaths are tarred and sanded, and there is a bowling green for the men, croquet lawns for the womenfolk, and tennis courts for the younger people of the village. The houses are built on the plan of a hollow square, in the centre of which stand the great wood workshops of the Railway Department, which are now turning out standardised houses for railway workmen in different parts of the Dominion at the rate of one a day. The houses of the model settlement each contain five rooms, with hot and cold water, bath, and all other modern conveniences. They are not built to the usual railway pattern and painted in the customary drab brown which characterises railway cottages generally. They are of a semi-bungalow type, all with the same ground floor plan, but the roofs are of five different designs, while the external finishings are also varied, which thus does away with what otherwise might be a barracklike monotony. They are neat and attractive, and the basic colour is cream, suitably picked out with other tints. A slightly better type of house is proposed for the heads of departments, and the rent is, in all cases, fixed on the basis of one day’s pay, irrespective of what the occupant is earning. Thus one man may be an engine cleaner earning, say, 15/- a day, while another occupant may be a labourer in the wood workshops earning only 13/daily. As rent each would pay the equivalent of one day’s pay, irrespective of his job or the fact that both occupied houses of the same capital value. The thoroughfares are all. spacious and well laid out, with concrete kerbs and channelling, and for the most part the dwellers in this Utopian settlement take a keen interest in their own homes and a pride in their village, as is evidenced by the state of most of the gardens. There are, of course, instances where it might be figuratively said that the nest has been fouled, and where no interest whatever is shown by the occupants in their plots, and who are not imbued with the community spirit. Such cases are, however, fortunately few.