LAND AND HOUSING
173
verandahs. Only 20,000 households had accommodation with a living room not used for sleeping.
The estimated total population at the end of 1959 was 2,919,000 persons, of whom approximately 80% were living in the urban areas of Hong Kong, Kowloon and New Kowloon. At the same date the regular domestic accommodation in these urban areas consisted of 1,148 houses, 10,049 large flats, 17,249 small flats, 93,726 tenement floors and 9,522 low-cost housing units. 54.63% of these units were of post-war construction, an increase of 8.26% over the previous year. 11,554 new domestic premises were erected during the year, but 1,506 old premises were demolished.
The Special Committee on Housing appointed in 1956 to investi- gate and report on the housing situation rendered two interim reports and one final report, the Final Report being laid on the table of Legislative Council in December 1958. This Report was considered during the ensuing year and the principal outcome was the announcement of Government's decision to embark on a programme of very low-cost housing for persons whose family income is less than $300 a month. The Resettlement Department will be expanded to undertake responsibility for this housing programme, and the Public Works Department will design the buildings. They will be constructed on the principle of resettlement blocks but will be of improved quality and with better amenities. It is hoped to embark on this programme in 1960, and in the first instance priority will be given to those families displaced from buildings which are dangerous, or which must be demolished to make way for public projects. It will therefore be some time before this new accommodation becomes available in sufficient quantity to make an appreciable impact on the overcrowded conditions of the older tenement buildings.
Succeeding paragraphs describe some of the other ways in which Government, in many cases in association with private enterprise, has been tackling the housing problem.
Since the war land has been made available by Government at one-third of the estimated market value in order to encourage non- profit-making housing projects by a number of voluntary societies providing housing for the lower income groups and also to en- courage employers to provide housing for their own employees.