CO129-450 - Acting Governor Claud Severn - 1918 [10-12] — Page 88

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Estimates of the current year.

9.

In my address to Council, I have

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fully with the principal items under "Other Charges and Special Expenditure, and I can only repeat what the Governor wrote last year that the continuing prosperity of the Colony and the constant increase of the population has made it imperative that areas shall be opened up for building sites wherever possible.

10.

The housing of the European population

has become a matter of real difficulty and the Governor

before his departure on leave went into the question of building quarters for Government Officers with great care.

Under the rent allowance scheme an

officer in Class I can take a house at £2,400 a year, towards which the Covemment pays £1,680. When houses are

built for officers in this class, the Govemment will be

relieved of this payment of $1,690, and it will also be in

pocket $720, being the rental which it is proposed to charge for the new houses. In other words the Government will get

what is tantamount to a rental of 82,400 in respect of each house. This rental represents a return of 5 per centum

$48000

on a capital sum of $480;

and having this in mind the

Governor decided to build really good houses at a coat of about $40,000 each. Similarly for Class II it is proposed to build houses at the Peak at a cost of about $34,000 each,

the return to Government in rent and remission of rent

allowance being 82,100. Officers in Mass III will be

Accommodated both at the Peak and elsewhere in houses costing

from $18,000 to $20,000, the return to Goverment in their

case being at the rate of $1,500. It is regarded as the

best policy to build houses of brick and granite with

re-inforced concrete floors, which will be practically non-

-inflammable and require a very small annual expenditure for

repairs. As the staff of the Public Works Department is

at