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LAND AND HOUSING
managers, maintenance officers, and assistants. The planning, con- struction, administration, management and maintenance of the estates is carried out by the housing division of the Urban Services Department, under the direction of the Commissioner for Housing.
RESETTLEMENT
Hong Kong's resettlement estates have attracted world-wide attention. Few visitors leave the Colony unimpressed by the fact that hundreds of thousands of people are being provided with housing by a low-cost building programme which, for speed and imagination, has few if any parallels. By the end of 1962 the Government of Hong Kong had become, through this programme, the direct landlord of about 508,166 people. This figure repre- sents about jone-seventh of the population and there are plans to resettle a further 500,000 people during the five-year period 1962-7. New blocks, each capable of accommodating over 2,200 people, are being built at the rate of one every 10 days.
The rapid increase in population following the war led to the saturation of conventional housing. This meant that for many the only means of obtaining shelter was to put up a hut, of any materials that could be had cheaply, on any piece of vacant land. These squatter huts rapidly spread over the urban areas of Hong Kong and Kowloon. In many places there were colonies of squatters, some of 50,000 or more, living together in a closely- packed mass, with their own shops and schools, and even factories and workshops. Sanitation was primitive or non-existent, there were frequent fires and a constant threat of epidemic disease. Moreover, the presence of the squatters on the land made it impossible to solve the very problems to which their presence had given rise. The houses, schools and hospitals needed for this swollen population could not be put in hand because the land required for their construction was occupied by squatters.
As early as 1948 squatters had been moved from central districts to 'tolerated areas' on the outskirts of the city, where they were allowed to rebuild their huts. Later 'approved resettle- ment areas' were established where dwellings were required to be built of stone or other fireproof materials to an approved pattern. These tolerated areas had the disadvantage that they