HOUSING SCHEME IN HUTT

Southland Times, Issue 23794, 17 April 1939, Page 6

HOUSING SCHEME IN HUTT

ACTION BY BOROUGH COUNCIL ADVANCEMENT OF COST TO PURCHASERS (Special to The Times) WELLINGTON, April 15. A system of municipal housing adopted by the Upper Hutt Borough Council is providing homes at weekly outlays to the purchasers considerably lower than it is possible to tent or buy _ a house privately. The town clerk, Mr B. M. Wilmshurst, who explained the scheme, said that he had details of a number of schemes, but there seemed none better than that adopted in Upper Hutt. • The council had raised the necessary finance by special order with a rate levy as security. This rate was only nominal, however, and it was unnecessary to impose it as the scheme financed itself.. Applicants were required to have a freehold section, or £5O, which was about the figure at which a section could be bought in the district, in cash. The council then advanced the cost of tiie" building. If had six houses erected and occupied and seven in the course of erection. It had exhausted the loan moneys raised (£14,800) with the exception of from £5OO to £6OO. Those to whom loans were granted were (required to pay, in addition to interest, principal and other outgoings, £5 a £lOOO a year reserve fund and the expense ’of a mortgage insurance repayment premium which cost the council around £lOO for the full term of 30 years. One applicant, aged 30, had a house which cost £933, plus £9B mortgage insurance. His weekly outgoings were only £1 2/5. In the event of his death the insurance policy would pay the balance of mortgage owing. • The reserve fund would also keep a man’s repayments going for a time in case of illness or unemployment. If a man did not draw on the reserve fund at all he would have paid off his house in 25 years. , Another man, aged 22, who had a loan of £1025, was paying £1 3/weekly. There had been a large number of inquiries from persons desiring to participate in the scheme. These came not only from local residents, but from persons outside the borough who were contemplating buying a section there and building. He could not say what the council’s intentions were regarding an extension of the scheme. The borough’s population is approximately 4000.