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LAND AND HOUSING
of construction of resettlement blocks so as to clear 100,000 persons a year. Three new estates are under construction which will provide for a combined population of 157,000, and plans already approved for construction over the next four or five years will provide for an additional 300,000 persons.
The New Territories Administration is responsible for squatter control in the New Territories. Teams now regularly patrol the more readily accessible parts of the New Territories, which are zoned; the 'non-prohibited' zones are those where the erection of temporary structures may be allowed if the District Officer grants a permit, and the 'prohibited' areas are such as the margins of roads, layout and development areas, and land exposed to flooding, where it is necessary to prevent still more squatters from building huts. When existing structures have to be cleared from areas required for development, the occupants usually receive assistance to rebuild their huts on approved sites elsewhere.
RENT CONTROLS
In 1947 the Landlord and Tenant Ordinance replaced certain temporary proclamations made shortly after the end of the Pacific war. Its object was to protect tenants of pre-war premises, and limited the increases in rent (30% for domestic premises and 45% for business premises over the standard 1941 rents) which any landlord could charge. Essentially the same controls exist today, although increases of 55% of standard rent for domestic premises and 150% for business premises were allowed in 1954, after an increase for business premises of up to 100% in 1949. It is now possible for a landlord who wishes to redevelop controlled property to get permission to do so through a Tenancy Tribunal on conditions which include the payment of compensation to tenants for the loss of their tenancies.
Since 1953 two Tenancy Inquiry Bureaux have been set up within the framework of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs to help the machinery of the Landlord and Tenant Ordinance to work smoothly. The principal statutory duties placed on these Bureaux are to provide Tenancy Tribunals with factual informa- tion whenever an application is made by a landlord for exclusion from control or by a tenant for the reduction of rent. As a direct