BUILDING COSTS

Evening Star, Issue 23683, 17 September 1940, Page 3

BUILDING COSTS

FIGURES FOR STATE HOUSES GAN ECONOMIES BE EFFECTED ? Cheap housing and its advantages can hardly be an excuse for the continuance of the Government scheme, to judge from the State Housing report for the year ended on March 31, which is quoted in ‘ Building Progress.’ According to this, the total number of houses built under the State housing scheme was 6,459, the total net expenditure being £10,6-47,201. This brings the average cost per house to £1,648 8s Cd —a rather formidable total. Administration costs are-reckoned in the report at the comparatively light figure of £275,512, but it seems evident that, having regard to the type of house, much less value is obtainable for the money than was the case when competition kept the builders’ prices down. Not that the tendering for the State houses is not competitive; but builders might be more prepared to shave costs if the security of a Government job was not behind them.

It is impossible not to see a dozen ways in which building costs in this Dominion could be reduced. One''has not to go further than the nearest timber yard to bo confronted with a number of practically unanswerable questions. For instance; Would not the process of drying timber be carried out much more cheaply if the yard were stationed at the mill whore the timber was cut? Certainly, rates on the land would bo lower, even though rates are levied on improvements in Dunedin. A certain amount of handling would bo eliminated, cutting labour costs. It would bo more economic; a more attractive haulage prospect for both railways and road transport if dry timber only was carried—and one does not have to see lorry loads of timber bogged down on bush roads to realise this.

Carry the proposition a step further. Why not have tho timber machined or dressed at the mills? If more workers were employed at the production centre distribution costs of produce would be equalisedi In other words, the necessaries of life would be carried to them in tlie trucks which now run back empty. A greater load of timber could be carried to the distributing centre if it were dressed than, as at present, in the rough. Transport costs would thus bo cut again. And, so the story goes. It is easy to point out the way of economy. It is harder to realise that such economies to the house owner depend entirely on tho amount of capital that may be vested in the hands of one agent. Such economies are a commonplace in such countries as the United States, where the capitalist, until the era of the New Deal, was allowed a free rein.