Hutt Valley Housing

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 19, 17 October 1942, Page 6

Hutt Valley Housing

Sir, —i am sorry that the Minister of Housing eannot appreciate that my council has responsibility to the people or Lower Hutt and to the potential occupiers of the proposed houses to see that a good standard is not departed from. I must remind him that these houses would have been erected with interior studs of 2 b'y 2 and with a floor area of well under 800 square feet for twobedroom houses if we had not intervened. The increase of 100 square feet has been worth fighting for but even now the threebedroom houses -are under 1000 syuare feet in area. I am not unaware that we are permitted to allow a minimum height or eight feet for living rooms, but we uo not issue permits for such heights as standard practice. I do not think any wholesale adoption of this height is desirable. Nor do I think that the,State should aim at the lowest permissible standard. , ~ As the Minister has said, the . new design transfers the whole weight of the tiled roof on to the exterior walls which have been reduced to 3 by 2 framing, as against 4 by 2 requirements under all the by-laws I know of, where a big portion of the load is distributed over the interior partitions. The studs in the partition walls are to be only 2i by 1* at two feet centres and the wall covering softboard. The building where no reliance is placed on interior partitions for support sits ,on 6 by 2 joists unbraced and with 8 ieet spans. r . • It would be of value if expert opinion were published concerning the earthquake safety factor, specially bearing m mind the collapse recently of another building where similar principles governed the construction. The Minister says I advocate that what was good enough for our fathers is good enough for us. Inis, though totally inaccurate, is surely better than his decision that .what is barely good enough for us is much too good for the boys returning from service—the fathers of the next generation and their families. . It has always been the earnest desire of my council and myself to improve the standard of housing and any criticism is directed to that end. Hitherto it has proved reni a rkably^neee^ifl.-l a am, o e r te., Lower Hutt City, October 16.