programme of these vast dimensions will fall far short of meeting the Colony's housing needs.
A comprehensive survey of the housing situation is now being under- taken by a special committee set up by Government in February 1956.
DEVELOPMENTS
As can easily be imagined by anyone with a knowledge of the local terrain, one of the main difficulties experienced by the Authority is the lack of suitable building sites. Indeed, such sites, where expensive and prolonged site formation is not involved, are now virtually unobtainable within the urban area, where most of the people to be re-housed must be accommodated, in order to be reasonably near their places of liveli- hood. It is thus self-evident that land within the urban area, or at least the more accessible parts of it, must not be sterilized by cheap single- storey housing, and therefore vertical development, in the shape of multi-storied blocks of flats, has been accepted as the only solution to the problem.
This is not the ideal form of dwelling, and is relatively expensive to construct: in addition the maximum densities permitted in the United Kingdom and elsewhere must be considerably exceeded if sufficient accommodation is to be provided with the limited land resources available. The Authority's long-term plans envisage the eventual provision of 5,000 housing units a year, and to meet this target it has had to accept nett densities of 1,500 or more persons to the acre (which would be regarded as slum densities elsewhere in the world), but even on this basis it has not been easy to find land.
A very close liaison is maintained with the Public Works Department in the endless search for sites. When located, and if found to be avail- able for development, these are reserved by Government for the Authority's use, pending the successful outcome of negotiations with regard to the price of the land, and the drawing up of plans for its development. It is often found, in this over-crowded city, that the sites are occupied by squatters, and their clearance by the Resettlement Department is nearly always a tedious and lengthy affair. The Authority is most grateful to the two Departments concerned for their help and co-operation, without which it would be most difficult to operate at all, and certainly not on any large scale.
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