STATE HOUSES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 54, 1 February 1938, Page 4

STATE HOUSES.

TWO UNITS TO BE BUILT. In a letter to Hon. J. G. Cobbe, M.P., the Parliamentary Under-Sec-retary (Mr J. A. Lee) discounts any suggestion that, because the Government has arranged for nine additional single house units, it has abandoned the building of a two-house unit at Feilding. Mr Lee says: “The two-house unit has not been abandoned for any town. The two-house unit is a high-class accommodation for elderly couples and is certainly preferable to two separate units of the same nature. It is in accordance with town-planning principles of the highest degree and is a feature of housing schemes of high quality everywhere. As a matter of fact, we hope to be able to extend our scheme of small pensioners’ flats containing good quality accommodation, but built in a single unit, each with its separate piece of ground, into every centre. There is a huge ..demand for such schemes, the accommodation being good and the rental reasonable. Our purpose is not to house one section of the community, but to house a complete cross-spction of the community, and you will appreciate the necessity for providing for people who at present are compelled to inhabit rooms in other people’s houses. “Old-age pensioners’ associations and town-planing associations from all over [New Zealand are asking us to speed the erection of such a type of house, and we certainly will see that Feilding gets its share. It will be interesting to compare our lowest standard house with the figures revealed by the housing survey. Under such comparisons we come through splendidly. I know | your own interest in desiring something for elderly couples as well as for others, and I am sending this note to prevent any misunderstanding.”