1972

In December 1972, the State Planning Authority demanded some changes to the design at Resthaven Marion and the Administrator, Guthrie Hutchinson, was ‘concern[ed] with regard to rising costs because of the delay’:

‘This project [had] caused a great deal of anxiety to us in the beginning due to unexplainable delays in getting land transfers … Many months [had] passed without being able to find the cause of delay. We [had been] unable to go on with plans until it became our property. Since then we [have] made headway’.

In the following year, the buildings at Marion began to take form, but still there were troubles. Interruptions and shortages of tradesmen seemed never-ending, and applicants for the units, who had made substantial down payments, were becoming ‘restive’.