GERALDINE RURAL HOUSING PROBLEM

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21553, 16 January 1940, Page 3

GERALDINE RURAL HOUSING PROBLEM

Scheme To Assist Community County Council Meets That the Geraldine County Council should assist in any way it could with the scheme for providing advances for rural housing was the opinion expressed by Cr. J. Acland at the monthly meeting of the Council yesterday. A memorandum covering the procedure in connection with advances to farmers under the Rural Housing Act (1939) was received from the State Advances Corporation of New Zealand. Councillors, said the letter, would have a first hand knowledge of the urgent need that existed - for a measure of improvement to be effected in rural housing conditions and it was hoped that the Act now passed, and the financial provisions which had been made to implement the legislation, would enable some progress to be made in the improvement of existing conditions. It was particularly, said the letter, to obtain the active cooperation of county councils (and of other local authorities witnin whose districts rural land was included) and they felt sure that this co-operation would be freely extended. Local authorities had an active part to play in the new scheme, and the first hand knowledge of local conditions and of the personal factor of potential borrowers would make for successful administration. Cr. Acland said he understood that the Farmers’ Union and other farming organisations had approached the Government to devise a scheme for the provision of housing on farms. If the present scheme was going to be the only opportunity for a farmer to borrow money, he said, he thought the county council should do everything in its power to help. The fact that the county councils were asked to help m the administration of the scheme was a move in the right direction. It was a step away from centralisation, he continued. The scheme would probably help farmers with finance for houses for farm workers. The county clerk (Mr A. A. Readdie) said that repayments were on a table mortgage basis from 15 to 25 years. Six per cent, provided for sinking fund and interest on the 25 year scheme. After further discussion it was agreed to table the correspondence for the information of councillors.