LAND AND HOUSING
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built in one area by the Church World Service and a hostel for tuberculosis and cancer out-patients was constructed in another by the National Catholic Welfare Conference.
One new cottage area was built during the year near the grow- ing market town of Yuen Long in the New Territories with money donated by the people of Belgium as a contribution towards the World Refugee Year programme. This new area, called Shui Ngau Ling, accommodates 993 rural squatters from Tai Pei Tau whose huts had been regularly flooded in the wet season. At the Chai Wan cottage area on Hong Kong Island, an additional 180 cottages were provided by the Methodist Church to replace earlier unsatis- factory structures. During 1961 development plans led to the clearance in five cottage areas of some 1,577 cottages and huts, and the resettlement into estates of 11,196 persons.
Rennie's Mill Village. In 1950 a new community came into existence in Junk Bay on the eastern shores of the Kowloon Peninsula when a number of ex-Nationalist soldiers, previously accommodated on Hong Kong Island, were moved to a camp under the supervision of the then Social Welfare Office. With the passage of time many of the original soldiers moved away. Other refugees and their families took their place and the camp de- veloped into a permanent settlement of some 8,000 inhabitants living in stone cottages, many of which were constructed with the assistance of welfare organizations.
During 1961 the Resettlement Department took over the admin- istration of the village as an additional cottage area and began to remedy deficiencies in sanitation and other services. In the latter half of the year physical surveys of the area and its popula- tion were carried out as necessary preliminaries to the formal administration of the area and the provision of suitable new public amenities.
Squatter clearances. During the year 70,941 persons were cleared from land required for development. All genuine occupants were resettled, mostly in the 42 new multi-storey blocks completed and handed over by the Public Works Department in 1961. This year's intake brought the total population of the multi-storey estates to 359,755. A small number went into new cottages and the cottage areas now contain 79,239 people. In all, these 1961 clearances freed 274.53 acres of land. The largest single squatter clearance in