Ferkai András: Housing Estates - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2005)
The Civil Servants' Estate
rémmwxsmts. ■ Visual design oj) the KiUanek Home on the postal workers' Zugló housing estate (29 Gervay utca, D XIV) and scandalous parcelling manipulations until as late as 1908. Even after that, the only associations achieving substantial success were those of the large and well-organised body of postal workers and the influential professional community of judges and state attorneys. Established in 1908 by the welfare and supplementary pension fund of the state- employed personnel of the Hungarian Royal Post, the Home Association promised its members homes in detached houses with gardens. A spectacular achievement scored by the movement started by postal and telegraph operators was the housing estate in Zugló named after Vilmos Hennyei, the association’s president. (The corruption of the name resulted in the pleasant-sounding designation Zuglóhenye in certain publications.) The estate was built between 1910 and 1912 in the outlying area between the lines of Hajtsár utca (today's Nagy Lajos király út) and Körvasút sor, on plots newly parcelled out on either side of Gervay út. The association acquired the land from the municipality at a moderate price to subdivide it into 150 to 200 square-fathom plots. In the customary manner of the period, the municipality made the builders cover the expenses related to building streets and installing public utilities, which raised house prices per square metre considerably. Luckily, banks were by now prepared to offer far more affordable loans. That was because the law provided for the use of housing allowances for the payment of construction expenses. (Why, one wonders, has that law been allowed to fall into disuse?) Another reason that the banks could feel more secure was the fact that mortgages were entered in the cadastral register. As a result, no down payment was required from builders, and the first instalment was payable after the proprietor occupied the new property. A hundred semi-detached houses were originally envisaged for the postal 16
