FLATDOM

Southland Times, Issue 20147, 6 April 1927, Page 8

FLATDOM

HAVE TENEMENTS COME TO STAY? THE FRUITS OF WAR. EASY AND CONVENIENT LIVING. While they offer no genuine home surroundings and no more appeal to sentiment or true comfort and privacy than possibly the hired room at the hotel, flats have been approved and accepted by the modern world, states the Auckland Star. Their commendable feature is that they afford a mode of living that is easy and convenient for couples setting out on the turbulent sea of matrimony with limited capital, for diminishing families, or for busy businessmen and women desirous of being handy to their places of employment, and, incidentally, within easy range of entertainments.

In Auckland, flats have come to stay. They have multiplied rapidly in the last ten years, and in many instances are now proring a profitable commercial proposition, the prices demanded for them ranging from 30/- for the modest tenement to £l2 and £l4 for capacious and centrally situated apartments. There is apparently no escape from their not altogether desirable embrace; they are one of the fruits of the war that offer a new way of living. Although the housing shortage was not so acute in the Dominion as it was in some countries immediately following the cessation of hostilities, encouragement was given many property owners to subdivide their houses—the majority of which were unsuitable for the purpose—into two or more tenements. This has led to a measure of congestion and other undesirable conditions, and has also served to increase the already high values of such premises, and, incidentally, of rents. The system of loan advances by the Government and the building of houses by municipalities and State departments, has provided a partial solution of the problem, but the inflated value of land and property generally, makes complete solution a thing of increasing difficulty. The investment of public capital at the present prices for land and buildings, either means that to secure a return on the capital invested, present values must be obtained, with consequent high rents, or, if the latter are reduced, the capital will not show' in the future a proper return. In making a survey of the housing problems of to-day at the recent conference of civil the retiring president (Mr W. E. Bush), said that some solution of the matter must be secured would not be disputed, because proper housing w'as an essential factor in the contentment of the individuals comprising a community. Bad housing, on the other hand, invariably led to other evils. The experience of other large cities —where housing conditions were bad and immense sums were being spent to remedy the position—should cause every thinking man and woman, and especially those who were charged with guiding the development of the cities, to carefully study the subject and to take steps to preserve the advantages at present possessed. On the whole, he considered, the population of New Zealand was w y ell housed, but there was need to remedy, as far as possible, the disabilities that had arisen.