Prefabrication Holmes February 28th.
In the housing arena,the Government has taken something that is simple and straight forward and made it complex and difficult.All Governments of late have failed to increase the number of state houses available to low income families.The number of state houses have disappeared, they represent 13% of the rental housing market,private landlords control the other 87%of the market.
The disestablishment of the New Zealand Housing Commission,is one of the many reasons that governments have created the present housing crisis.The Commission produced good information and advice to the government of the day on what was needed for the future on housing ,Rodger Douglas thought other wise,and disestablished the Commission.
The shortage of affordable rental housing has brought back the idea of prefabrication homes,made in factories and erected on site.The Palmerston North Teachers College was once a transit camp with '' prefab housing '' tenants lived there while the government was building State Housing around the city.The image of ''prefabs'' has been stigmatized by the media,they are seen as clones of one another, the same could be said of private housing in more up market neighbourhoods.Yet there are a number of groups who have produced interesting houses at low cost,but local councils and central government have shown little interest as they only seem interested in home ownership,despite the fact that home ownership is not going to happen for the majority of New Zealanders.Renters are the future and will be for some time to come,it will take years to sort out of the mess we are in with affordable housing,we need a government with a commitment to public housing.
