BUILDING IN SYDNEY.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 228, 26 September 1929, Page 10

BUILDING IN SYDNEY.

AMAZING FIGURES.

VOGUE OF THE COSTLIER HOME

THIRTY BUILDINGS A DAY,

(From Our Spccial Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, September 20

Sydney's most amazing anomaly is its huge unemployment list contemporaneous with a record year in building construction.

During the twelve months ended June 30, £17,500,000 was spent on building in tho area served by the Metropolitan Water Board, which includes a population of 1,500,000. Over 11,000 buildings were erected in the year 1928-9, at the cost mentioned. This is fewer than erected in the previous year, but the coat was higher, due mostly to a higher standard of luxury. It is remarkable that while the cost of new buildings in 1914 average only £098, this year the average was £1551. The new homes' built last year numbered 9389, new business premises 937, and new blocks of flats 047. Building costs in different suburbs show striking contrasts. In the "workingman's" districts of Ryde and Canterbury the average cost is £900. In nearby and select Woollahra, it is no less than £3000 —and building costs are very much lower in Sydney than in Auckland, despite the fact that almost all dwellings here are constructed of brick. One Woollahra home, erected for one of the, drapery Grace family, cost £30,000. \ j It is noteworthy that up to very recently the standard of comfort iii| dwellings was not comparable with that of New Zealand homes; they had few of j the conveniences attached even to the most modest of bungalows in, say, Auckland. But even the cheaper type of cottage beinj erected in Sydney to-day contains some resemblance to the domestic architecture of the costly home. Today the humblest housewife insists upon modern kitchen and bathroom appliances, with the latest lighting and heating systems and interior decorations. Electric lighting and heating arc exceedingly cheap in Sydney, anyway, so why not have the best when ultimately it costs less? But one misses in Sydney tho large sections and the gardening facilities one found in Auckland. It is long journeying from the city to find a decent backyard. And near the city there are rows and rows of terrace house and "semidetaclied's" in which one can almost hear one's neighbours breathe. In time, these must vanish, for modern sanitation demands dwellings which have sufficient light and ventilation.