FLATS TO BE ERECTED

Southland Times, Issue 23392, 27 December 1937, Page 8

FLATS TO BE ERECTED

Announcement By Prime Minister SEVERAL AT POINT CHEVALIER TWO STORY HOUSES FOR WELLINGTON PLANNED (United Press Association) AUCKLAND, December 26. A new development in the Government’s housing scheme—the proposed erection of houses each comprising four small flats suitable for elderly people, and young married couples without children, or pensioners—is announced by the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage). The first group will be erected at Point Chevalier, and the scheme may be subsequently extended to other parts of the Dominion. Although the Prime Minister did not say so, it is understood that the rent of each flat will be about 14/- a week. “Tenders are being called for the erection of a group of these houses at Point Chevalier,” Mr Savage said. “The contract provides for the erection of four flats of the bed-sitting-room-kitchenette type all in one building and with one community laundry for the four flats. The buildings will be of the single floor variety and the accommodation will be such as to supply the needs of the type of tenant of moderate means for whom little has been done in the past. “Double floors have been avoided in the initial scheme,” Mr Savage said, “but a two story or a story and a-half house will appear at the point at which sufficient alternative accommodation, is available to permit of slum clearance. Slum clearance schemes in Great Britain have always been prosecuted on the understanding that alternative accommodation must be available before slums are demolished, and something of the same nature will have to be taken into consideration in New Zealand. “Plans are also being prepared for a housing scheme of a two-story variety in an area in Wellington at present owned by the Crown. If the plans suggest economical and efficient treatment, and if the local authority is agreeable an early experiment will be conducted in the erection of a type of house and flat suitable for slum clears ance. A feature will be the provision of wide, grassed playing fields.”