LAND AND HOUSING
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when existing structures have to be cleared from areas required for road widening, water supply pipelines or other development, the occupants are normally given assistance in the form of building materials and rice to enable them to rebuild their huts on suitable sites elsewhere. An exception is Tsuen Wan, where during 1964 9,233 persons cleared from areas required for development were resettled direct into standard resettlement blocks in the Tai Wo Hau and Kwai Chung Central resettlement estates.
HOUSING
Private enterprise has provided new accommodation for about 827,897 people during the past nine years, but a large number of these people are those who have had to be re-housed as a result of old buildings being demolished. At the end of 1964 rated domestic accommodation in the urban areas (excluding resettlement estates) comprised 112,650 tenement floors, 28,857 small flats, 14,204 large flats, 964 houses and 26,588 low-cost housing units. Domestic accommodation predominates in all new building projects.
The Government Low-cost Housing programme, introduced in 1962, which is designed to provide accommodation for people who earn less than $400 a month and who are living in insanitary or overcrowded conditions, has made considerable progress. At the end of the year five low-cost housing estates, to provide accommoda- tion for 54,828 people in 11,754 flats, were either fully completed or nearing completion and work on two additional estates had already been started. The original programme was to house 20,000 people a year but this has been considerably increased by the revised policy which laid down new building programmes for low-cost housing as well as resettlement building. These aim at 170,000 new units of this type over the next six years with a technical planning target of 290,000 by 1974. The costs are estimated at $197,000,000 and $353,000,000 respectively.
Apart from these two government programmes the Hong Kong Housing Authority, a statutory body created in 1954, provides the largest housing programme for people in need of low-cost housing. The Authority itself consists of all members of the Urban Council, ex officio, and certain other members appointed by the Governor. The Ordinance constituting the Authority gives it wide powers in