Sweden Sets the Pace in Housing Movements

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 22, 27 January 1937, Page 16 (Supplement)

Sweden Sets the Pace in Housing Movements

CO-OPERATIVE ACTIVITY New Zealand would appear to have something to learn from Sweden in the movement to overtake the housing shortage. The “Federal Home Loan Bank Review" (U.S.A.), which has made a close study of Swedish policy, mentions that the distinctive feature of the process in Sweden seems to have been the co-operative activity of the citizens themselves in providing their better housing. For even though the Government exercised the broadest power affecting housing —rent restriction, subsidies and loans, direct construction of dwellings, expropriation of land —the emphasis, wherever possible, seems to have been on measures to help the citizens to help themselves. Moreover, says the “Review," the costs to the Government and the taxpayers apparently have been held to a minimum. As far back as 1874 the Government had improved local authorities to uni dertake town planning, including, in ! some instances, the control of subdivision. Town planning regulations have been gradually extended and modified. Parks and playgrounds are now required in proportion to the dwelling density. Municipalities have powers of expropriation to provide adequate housing in congested areas. To-day, therefore, in most Swedish I cities no building may be erected withlout the approval of the Building Board, comprising one lawyer, one physician, two architects, and one building contractor. This board is required to see, j among other things, that the buildings I are suitable to their lots, and that they | satisfy architectural standards. Also in the field of design and construction, the Government has long sought to rationalise the building industry. Numerous important grants have been made to the Academy of Technical Science for research. Coupled with its success iu housing, Sweden has also developed a farsighted land policy. Evils of land speculation, often rife in this country, have been i reduced in Sweden by a policy of municipal land purchase. Stockholm, according to the “Federal Homo Loan Bank Review," set the example by its policy, begun in 1004. By 1935 it had purchased land surrounding the city to a total of 20,000 acres, five times the area of the city proper. Other Swedish cities have followed suit. To prevent speculation, once the land was built on, the Government, in 1907, authorised muniicipalities to transfer only surface rights 1 so that they could retain control of the 'uses to which the property could be put. < In 1909 tho State organised a semiI public central mortgage bank known as | the Urban Mortgage Bank, for which the Government supplied the working i capital. Raising its funds by the sale j of bonds to the public, the bank makes | ioans to the Urban Mortgage Associa- ! lions on the security of first mortgages, Sup to a maximum of 60 per cent of J value of the property, i To further stimulate home ownership, j the Swedish Government, as early as 1904, started the “Garden City Movement," the purpose of which was to (provide low-cast housing on city-owned land.