Expansion Brings A Severe

Home Shortage To Noumea

From HELEN ROUSSEAU, in Noumea Yachtsmen arriving in Noumea, tempted by local prospects of highly-paid jobs, have to admit that the only way to stay in the territory is to bring their own housing.

The local mining expansion, bring ing a rapid increase in allied busi ness, is producing a severe housing shortage in Noumea.

Daily newspapers are now carry ing large advertisements from in dividual companies seeking homes, apartments or business premises for their staff. Average three-bedroom homes in the suburbs —if you can find one—are commanding rents from $4OO monthly.

As workers swell into Noumea, three large land-reclamation projects are under way within three miles of the centre of town, to allow for housing and commercial construction.

Low-lying marshland is being filled in with nickel slag and by simply bulldozing down nearby hills.

Latest project to be announced by the Territorial Assembly is the creation of an “emergency town” of temporary dwellings to house up to 1,000 builders/tradesmen.

Workers pour in

Bulldozers are already at work carving out a hillside for this town, opposite the Magenta domestic air port. The temporary lodgings to be erected there are for the exclusive use of building companies to accom modate their employees. The latter are expected to be recruited from Europe, the New Hebrides, Wallis Islands and New Zealand.

As for land reclamation work, this may be regarded as an extension of what has already happened in the past. Much of central Noumea, in cluding the park and Quatier Latin, is filled-in marshland.

More recently, the Societe Le Nickel has been reclaiming a large surface along its waterfront, in the present project to double the area of its Noumea smelting works. Blue grey slag from the factory is being dumped to fill in the shallow marshes.

Now, just one mile further out from town, the first houses are near ing completion in a large settlement

which includes further reclaimed marshland.

This Riviere Salee (Salt River) project, is planned ultimately to house over 10,000 people. It has been initially financed by the Ponds Social de I’Habitat (FSH) a semi-govern mental housing authority. Funds for this agency come from a 2 per cent, payroll-tax paid by employers in

• Although there is more than enough room in most Pacific Islands, the urban centres are getting more and more crowded. Here we report on the latest housing pressures in Noumea and plans laid to remedy them. Meanwhile Port Moresby hopes to cope with its problems by moving the city centre.

New Caledonia. (Employers pay an overall 25 per cent, payroll tax to cover housing, workers’ accident, child-endowment and old-age benefits, There is no individual income tax in the territory).

The Riviere Salee project is to be carried out in three stages. The first group of 200 individual homes is to be completed next year.