BUILDING BILL.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 191, 13 August 1931, Page 5

BUILDING BILL.

New Tax Condemned as U nnecessary. ARCHITECTS’ OPINIONS. (Special to the “ Star.”) AUCKLAND, August 13. Considered opinion in Auckland is entirely antagonistic to the Building Construction Bill that was introduced into Parliament last week. Architects, builders and local body representatives agree in condemning the Bill as a hastily-conceived piece of legislation that would, if passed into law, put the building business into shackles from which it would take years to free itself. A prominent Auckland architect/ said this morning to a reporter that the two main faults in the Bill were the imposition of unnecessary new taxation on buildings and the wholly unjustifiable concentrating supervision of new buildings in a Government department. Must be Paid For. The committee of inquiry set up by the Government had produced certain suggested regulations, but instead of allowing the local authorities to embody those regulations in the existing by-laws the Government proposed to make thdfti compulsory, and the erection of all buildings under those regulations was to be amenable to the Public Works officials. The increased taxation and the Additional inspection would have to be paid for. It would speedily be found, once the new regulations came into force, that the Public Works Department had not enough engineers, and so a department that was already liberally staffed would have to be added to. Thousands Too Much.

The Bill provides that 5s per cent is to be paid on all future building permits, first to the local body, which will hand it to the Government, which, after deducting costs of administering the new law, will devote the remainder to research into the design of buildings to resist earthquakes. This apparently modest tax would result in the Government getting some £25,000 a year, a sum which was characterised by one architect as “ outrageous.” “ I quite agree,” he said, “ that there is need for further investigation into the matter of constructions that will withstand earthquakes, and that a certain amount of money should be found, but the Government does not need a sum of £25,000, or anything like it. Organisations in Japan and California, two places subject to earthquakes, are actively engaged in research into the very problems that are now facing us in New Zealand. The findings of these organisations are all available to the New Zealand Government, and could be made available to the people concerned, the whole cost being medfchtrifling.

“ Instead of adopting such a sensible and obvious course the Government calmly proposes to saddle buildings in New Zealand with this permanent tax to raise the wholly unnecessary sum of £25,000 a year. Another point in connection with this proposed tax of 5s per cent on new buildings is that, in my opinion, if money is required it should come out of the Consolidated Fund. There is no earthly reason why the builder alone should bear the whole cost. Every person in the Dominion is concerned in securing safe buildings, and it is only fair that the common fund should bear the cost.”