Page:Municipal Handbook of Auckland 1922.djvu/155

 of the various types of cottages, the City Engineer was instructed to erect 10 detached cottages, of five rooms each, on allotments having a frontage on Old Mill Road of 40 feet each and a depth of 140 feet. The houses were designed by the City Engineer.

The erection of these houses was undertaken when the price of labour and materials was at its highest, but, notwithstanding, the Council considered it advisable to construct the houses of permanent material, and for the most part earthenware hollow blocks, 18 inches by 9 inches by 6 inches, were adopted for the outer walls and concrete or brick for the internal walls. The cottages were plastered internally and roughcasted externally. The ten houses were completed at an average cost of £1,100, or, with the land, £1,250, and were sold, with the land, on a rent purchase agreement, £50 deposit being paid, the balance to be paid in half-yearly instalments of £44 1s, extending over a period of 25½ years.

The natural configuration of the older portions of the City made drainage a fairly easy matter, the gullies forming natural water-courses into which drainage could easily be led, and in course of time pipes and culverts were used to carry the drainage to the level of high or low tide.

With the increase of population, the pollution of the foreshore became such as to render some more