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LAND AND HOUSING
further afield for sites for new resettlement estates. Such schemes include areas in Yau Tong, Sau Mau Ping, Tsz Wan Shan, Tin Wan, Tai Wo Hau and Kwai Chung.
Reclamation schemes are reducing the number of sheltered anchorages and it has been found necessary to start resettling boat squatters to relieve congestion. During the year 8,037 boat squatters in seriously congested typhoon anchorages were resettled. The main aims are to preserve the maximum available space in typhoon shelters for fishing and other working craft and to reduce the serious health risk which these boats constitute.
Cultivators who lose their land and livelihood through clearance for development are given monetary compensation and during the year $2,085,270.27 was paid to cultivators against the clearance of 61.6045 acres of cultivation.
For squatters awaiting resettlement, who live in wooden huts there was the usual hazard of rainstorm and fire. In all 27 fires occurred in urban squatter areas during the year. In the two comparatively large fires that occurred at Fuk Wah Village in January and at Tung Tau Village in April respectively, a total of 318 huts were destroyed, making 6,331 persons homeless. The total number made homeless by all natural disasters during 1963 was 11,021 and, in accordance with current policy, they were either permitted to rebuild their huts on the old sites or allotted alter- native sites on which to rebuild their huts in areas not immediately required for development. To resettle these persons immediately would have seriously disrupted the programme of clearance and development.
Each year in October a fresh survey of urban squatter areas is carried out. Huts built before 1954 (or 1956 in the case of rooftops) continue to be tolerated. New huts are forbidden. No control is kept at present over the number of occupants of tolerated huts and it is the purpose of the survey to determine how many occupants there are. The 1963 return indicated a total of 534,315 squatters in the urban areas surveyed, including 80,541 on rooftops. Squatters in unsurveyed areas are thought to number some 80,000. New unauthorized huts and unauthorized extensions to existing huts are demolished; during 1963 14,746 such demoli- tions took place; 6,044 rooftop squatters and pavement huts
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