Mr. BALL. What I want to know is, where it says "President," does it mean you? Mr. PALMER. I certify to the President. Mr. SCHAFER. I have one more question. We have a shipbuilding company up at Quincy, and we have the Navy Yard, Charlestown, and both of them are expanding. While some of the local residents who have housing facilities will be working there in those plants, you will have a great influx of other workers. Now, if it is found that you have to have new housing at Boston, under this authority could you allocate $1,000,000 or $2,000,000 to the local Boston Housing Authority so that they could immediately get going and build permanent housing to house these surplus workers during the emergency, and then later on put those houses into a slum-clearance plan? Mr. PALMER. Absolutely, as recommended to the committee. Mr. PALMER. Yes, sir. Mr. HOLMES. May I make a suggestion to clear up the record? Of course, Boston has no obligation whatsoever, the city of Boston has no obligation whatsoever to house the citizens of Quincy. Mr. SCHAFER. How about spending their pay checks over the counter? Mr. HOLMES. If they are willing to accept them, then, of course, Boston is willing to cooperate in the spending. Mr. BOYKIN. Do you have a housing authority at Quincy? Mr. HOLMES. I mean Boston is not obligated to furnish them residences or homes. Mr. SCHAFER. I am not interested in that. I am interested in the long-range plan. When you put up temporary buildings, you have to pay a wrecker for tearing them down later. Here we have a city and two great facilities being expanded. We need houses to provide the workers with homes and provide for the national defense. We should have permanent buildings first, and the buildings which will be utilized to their full capacity after the emergency is over. If you need 1,000 homes there for national-defense workers, this Federal Government could allocate $1,000,000 to your housing authority, and then you could provide those mainly for the specific housing of those workers during the emergency, and then let them go to the housing authority for slum-clearance purposes. Mr. PALMER. I would like to keep the record clear, that we do not contemplate that this $150,000,000 would be used primarily that way, because there is more than enough need outside that field. Bill S. 591, previously mentioned, would provide those funds. Mr. SCHAFER. Still, with the normal growth of the city, you could utilize the houses after the emergency was over. Mr. PALMER. Yes; that is right. The CHAIRMAN. All those who have requested a chance to testify have been granted that privilege. Tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock we will take up this bill in executive session, and let us have a full committee attendance, and have the committee here just as promptly as possible at 10 o'clock. Mr. HOLMES. May I ask one other question? Did Quincy take advantage of the Federal Housing Act creating this Authority? Mr. HOLMES. No; I did not think they did. 259191-40-No. 11-7 The CHAIRMAN. We will meet at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning for an executive session. (Thereupon, at 11:50 a. m., the committee adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, September 4, 1940, at 10 a. m., to meet in executive session.) The Honorable FITZ LANHAM, FLINT, MICH., August 30, 1940. Chairman, House Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, The Congress of the United States, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR CONGRESSMAN: I wonder if you and the members of your committee realize the import of the decision you must make in regard to appropriations for defense and emergency housing. Would progress have been served if in the first decade of the motorcar industry Congress had begun by subsidies and mortgage guaranties to make it possible for our poorer families to maintain swanky new horses and buggies? The industrial way of doing things is wholly different from the old slowpaced and extravagant handicraft way. A motorcar costs to build to day $350, but by the time shelter for a single family is built by Government "stimulation" and paid for, $10,000 has been expended, as a little figuring of amortization plus interest will prove. This is one of the dangerous features of our present economy; that failure to progress in this vital field is draining into rent and interest as much as two-thirds of the low-income consumer's buying power and will continue to do so until Congress begins to subsidize vital improvements in the technology of building construction in the low-cost dwelling field. That is what your committee should attempt to do if hundreds of millions of dollars aren't to be tossed foolishly down a well. Where shelter is needed now is very apt to be not where it is needed 5 years from now. A truly prefabricated house that costs to build complete, under $1,500 per family, and that dismantles with 100 percent salvage of its parts can be achieved now, if your committee acts with true discrimination. * * * I happen to know that a large industrialist in the automotive field is right now considering the real mass-production of a superior type of house and he can be pushed in that direction by the proper action of your committee. If your committee persists in encouraging the old hammer-and-trowel types of shelter (from which labor receives a few months' work once in 6 years), then you will discourage progress in the most backward industry in this country, an industry that in the midst of whirring machines is building by methods that originated 10,000 years ago. I am sending your committee copy of the current issue of Dynamic America, and would call your attention therein to my article on our need now for making some progress technologically in this field. I enclose photo of a house put together wholly from prefinished panels which can be produced for as low as $1,000 per family unit. I shall hope that you will see the wisdom in stimulating some genuine progress in this field, so vital to the health, consumer, and industrial, of this Nation. Sincerely, CORWIN WILLSON. AUGUST 31, 1940. Mr. MAX DUNNING, Washington, D. C. DEAR MR. DUNNING: Yesterday in the House committee meeting considering the Housing bill, there was a good deal of doubt about housing cost, utility cost, and land cost of this class of housing; therefore, I went back to my records of a Federal Housing Administration subdivision survey, which I made from November to August. I enclose for you a simple table showing the relative propositions of homes under the $5,000 figure. Included also is a percentage figure for the land cost, the utility cost, etc. These are well-developed subdivisions with hundreds of houses all built and occupied under the Federal Housing Authority insured mortgage plan. If it will help anyone of your division in regard to small-house cost, you are at liberty to use it as you see fit. As you doubtless remember, I mentioned the fact that I was one of Olmsted's town planners in the old United States Housing Corporation of 1918. My work was on three projects in the Middle West. In 1936 I was principal landscape architect on the Green Hills project of the Resettlement Administration, having charge of the plan work. Since October 1936 I have been with the Federal Housing Authority, working on rental housing projects, subdivision analysis, and this utility and street-improvement investigation of the Federal Housing Authority insured subdivisions. I call my special line housing subdivisions, land use, and site planning. I have already seen Mr. Mellick, Mr. Gardner, and Mr. Simon, thinking perhaps, that a later connection is possible. I can refer you to Mr. Orin P. Bailey in your Division, who has known of me and my work for over 40 years. Yours very truly, CHARLES H. RAMSDELL. Subdivisions and housing costs reviewed and examined November 1939 August 1940 [The following table of housing costs in the States named are derived from a Federal Housing Administration subdivisional study of street and land improvements, utilities, etc. Costs given cover cost of house and garage, the raw or unimproved land per lot and the street utilities per lot, constructed by the developer, for sale to private parties with a Federal Housing Administration insured mortgage loan. Majority of these thousands of houses are sold and occupied at this time] Public Buildings and Grounds, Washington, D, C. DEAR SIR: On behalf of the New York State Federation of Labor, protest is hereby respectively registered against passage of H. R. 10412, which I am informed is now before your committee for consideration. This protest is based on the following grounds: That we believe the Public Buildings Administration is not sufficiently equipped nor qualified in experience to efficiently administer this proposed act, which provides for the expenditure of $150,000,000 for defense housing. That the pending bill contains no provision to require payment of prevailing rates of wages or limitation of hours of work consistent with the recognized standard of 8 hours per day and the 40-hour week. Organized labor of the State of New York, in its seventy-seventh annual convention in session from August 20 to 22, inclusive, when unanimously pledging its wholehearted cooperation to the Government of the United States and of the State of New York in connection with the national-defense program, went on record unanimously to urge the national administration and the Congress of the United States to enact no legislation in connection with the execution of the national defense program which did not contain a provision to observe and maintain established and recognized fair standards of employment. We trust that you will bring this protest to the attention of the members of the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, and that your committee may see its way clear to amend the present bill so as to overcome these objections. It is our strong conviction that unless the established labor standards are preserved and protected by the acts of Congress, the administration of our National Government and Legislature will be placed in an inconsistent position with the assurances previously given relative to policy. Cordially yours, E. W. EDWARDS, 262618 No. 12 HEARINGS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS SEVENTY-SIXTH CONGRESS THIRD SESSION ON H. R. 9989 A BILL AUTHORIZING THE ADMINISTRATOR OF VETERANS" SEPTEMBER 19, 1940 Printed for the use of the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds UNITED STATES WASHINGTON: 1940 |