LAND AND HOUSING
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Not all resettlement accommodation is of the same uniform standard, because some families in squatter areas live in structures of a much higher standard than the average. To provide these people with better accommodation, self-contained flats with private balconies, kitchens, lavatories and showers have been constructed in a number of blocks. In urban estates, for example, the occupants pay a total monthly rental-including rates—of $51.50 for such a flat of 240 square feet, or $74.75 for one of 360 square feet. H- blocks have also been modified to provide larger rooms on the ends of each floor with private balconies and their own water supply. These rooms in urban estates are let at a total monthly rental- including rates of $56.50 or $53 to families cleared from better than average structures.
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In 1964 the original H-block was abandoned in favour of a new design of resettlement building. The new blocks, of either eight or 16 storeys and called respectively Mark III and Mark IV, differ fundamentally from the older blocks in that access to domestic rooms is from a central corridor on each floor instead of from external common balconies running along each side of the building. This new design makes it possible to provide each room with a private balcony. Other innovations include refuse chutes, the in- stallation of electrical power and light points in domestic rooms, and private lavatories in place of the former communal latrines and wash-houses. The 16-storey blocks are provided with lifts. The new blocks cost more to build but they are an advance upon providing only basic requirements. The monthly rent of a standard domestic room of 129 square feet in an urban Mark III block is $31.50, composed of $23 basic rent with elements for rating and water charges; a room of the same size in a Mark IV block costs $35. By the end of 1965, 53 blocks of both kinds, but mostly Mark III, had been built, bringing the total number administered by the Resettlement Department to 378, housing 740,000 people.
Despite the large population and the wide variety of rents now charged, the number of tenants failing to pay their rent is still extremely small. Of a total of $39,928,234 due in rents for the year, only about .02 per cent had to be written off as irrecoverable
arrears.
The resettlement estates are virtually townships (the population of Wong Tai Sin Estate, for instance, is now 87,952) and a wide