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Year-End Review of the Building Industry
New York, December 31.-Shortages in certain building materials lines, in addition to labor shortages, will stand as obstacles to full production in the building industry for the first six months of 1946, according to L. M' Cassidy, vice president of Johns-Manville Corporation in charge of sales.
In a year-end revier,v of the construction industry made public today, Mr. Cassidy pointed out that very definite improvement can be expected over the present rate of building operations but the output of the industry will fall short of the general demand.
This condition will prevail in home building as well as in the commercial and industrial building markets. The building materials supply would undoubtedly be eased if the OPA would permit some adjustments in prices, he said.
"A recent survey conducted by the Producers' Council showed that out ol 17 maior classilications of building materials manufacturers who reported, 10 were unable to increase production output because of lack of profit," he said.
"The quality and class of construction in 1946 will be pretty much in line with what the industry produced at the start of the war period. There will be some improved products for use in bathrooms and kitchens and there will undoubtedly be a more widespread use of glass. Further progress can also be anticipated in improved design and space utilization. It is not anticipated, however, that any of these improvements will be of a revolutionary nature."
The figure most widely accepted in the trade today is that we will build about 500,000 homes in 1946, compared with 730,000 built in 1941 when residential construction in the post-depression period reached its peak, Mr. Cassidy said.
"No estimate of home building volume can be made without relating it to the general level of prosperity," Mr. Cassidy said. "In general, the more prosperity, the more marriages and the greater building need. Also, housing need translates itself into commercial demand faster in prosperous times.
"The total volume of new residential and non-residential construction will also depend on the general volume of business activity. Irrewar national income was around $70 billion. If it goes from $125 billion to $135 billion for a reasonably prolonged period after the war, total new construction in the years immediately ahead of us could well exceed any figure we ever reached, except perhaps in 1942, the great war building year when total new construction was $13.5 billions in continental United States and $2.5 billions outside of it."
Some of the factors retarding construction may right themselves, Mr. Cassidy pointed out. "Men are slowly drifting back to the timber stands and the lumber mills. Active young men, formerly in civilian construction or with newly acquired building experience and outdoor habits as a result of army experience, are being demobilized. By next spring, the average age of men on building jobs should have declined. But there is still a big deficit back-log of apprentices in the construction industry which only time can correct."
Ir-r addition to new construction in 1946, there is a huge volume of building classified as the "modernization, repair, maintenance and alteration" construction. Mr. Cassidv noted.
Western Forestry Conlerence
Officers elected for the coming year at the 36th annual {orestry conference of the \Mestern Forestry and Conservation Association held at Portland, Ore., December 13, 14 and 15, are: president, Kenneth Walker, Red River Lumber Co., \Mestwood, Cal.; secretary, Clyde Martin, Weyerhaeuser Timber Co., Tacoma, Wash.; treasurer, Charles Cowan, chief of the Washington Fire Association, Seattle, Wash.; assistant secretary-treasurer, Carl Hersey, assistant secretary, Oregon Forest Fire Association, Portland, Ore.
Earl Birmingham, Hammond Lumber Company, Sarr Francisco, was one of the regional vice presidents elected. Edmund Hayes, president of the Row River Lumber Co., Portland, Ore., is the retiring president.
Los Angeles Building Permits
Building permits for 1945 ran almost 4O per cent ahead of. 1944, City Building Superintendent G. E. Morris stated in his monthly report.
Last year permits aggregating $85,212,656 were issued, as against only $50,779,723 in 1944, Morris said.
Permits for December, 1945, totaled $13,790,391, including 828 single dwellings at $5,957,747 and 57 multiple units at $501,740.
