STATE HOUSING REVIEWED Targets Set For The Current Year

Chronicle (Levin), 9 April 1949, Page 5

STATE HOUSING REVIEWED Targets Set For The Current Year

Press Assoeiation)

(Per

WELLINGTON, April 8. The Housing Construction DeVision has set itself a minimum target of 450(: new State liouses during the year ending March 31 next, said the Ministet of Works, Mr. Semple, to-day. Themeans of reaching and, if possible, passing this target, had been one of the subjects'discussed by a eonference of housing officials which sat in WelJington this week. The eonference ended to-day. District housing targets will be: Auckland 1250, Hamilton 600, Napier 270, Palmerston North 430, Wellington 800, Christchurch 650, Dunedin 100. These figures are for districts of which the cities named are housing administrative cOntres. The eonference was informed that last year four of these districts (Hamilton, Napier, Palmerston North and Christchurch), had not only exceeded the- targets set for them tweive months earlier out had exceeded previous records for their districts. It was also stated that March this year had seen another record broken -the highest number of houses completed by the division in one month —842. . The eonference was under the chairmansliip of the Director of Housing Mr. R. B. Hammond. The Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, congratulated the division on its last year's aehievement of reaching and passing for the first time the total oi 4000 completed houses. The purpose of the eonference, said Mr. Semple, had been to review the past year's work, apply the lessons l'earnt to this year's operations, and to carry out a review of'^building cond; tions through New Zealand area bj area. The subjects diseussed included the programme for the coming year, o1 building potential for State Houses, the availability of materials, 'the possible use of alternative materials, the meth ods of pureliase of land and its deveJopment for building purposes, the con trol of building operations, the building of units suitable for elderly people, the rehabilitation of trainee contracts and general organisation and adminis tration. Discussions also had been held with the Rehabilitation Board and the Lands and Survey Department on the provision of houses for servicemen's fann settlement. Although some ,difficulty was expected regardiug supplies of cement this year, the supply of most building materials had sliown a big iniprovement. Timber was now much more plentiful and its supply continued to improve. The' ' suppl'y of bricks 'was still 'fluctu atmg but that of roofing tiles had iuiproved remarkably in recent months. The division had used last year over 3UU0 locally made baths. Although the local supply of baths had greatly irnproved, it still had been necessary to ' import about 1000 for State housing purposes. The possible use^of alternative materials and construction methods had been diseussed by the eonference. The diseussion hinged on the need for a definite programme so that suitable substitute materials would be used when the material specified was not available. An important factor was the maintenance of the standard of work. Ex-

periments already had been made by the division with conerete blocks, concrete exterior building blocks ftxed on wooden frames, solid construction with different types of conerete boards, the use of conerete without sand, new methods of eoncrete veneer, total conerete constructisp. . and also the exten sive use of pinus insignis. Houses buili of eoncrete without sand in Auckland, Hamilton, Rotorua, Palmerston North ( and Wellington, had been found generally satisfaetbry. The use _of conerete would be limited by the supply of cement but whatever proved worth ' using would be used. Prefabrication had been used by the division to buiid homes for timber -mill workers. The houses arrived at the mill site in two or three sections and were bolted together with satisfactory results. Thu suecess of prefabrication depended on a continued and adequate flow of materials and the division eonference was told that the division was now considering teehnieal problems with a view to the extension of this type of construction.