LAND AND HOUSING
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is reviewed annually by the Housing Board to ensure that the needs of resettlement are balanced with those of other government low-cost housing schemes. The history and growth of public housing in the Colony has been more fully dealt with in Chapter 1.
When the Resettlement Department was formed in 1954, the earliest type of multi-storey accommodation embarked upon was in the form of 'H' shaped blocks with communal washing and latrine facilities on each of the seven floors. Back-to-back individual rooms, accessible by communal balconies surrounding each floor, varied in size from 86 square feet to 152 square feet, with the majority being of 120 square feet, designed to house a family of four or five adults. Twenty-four square feet for an adult was taken as the minimum requirement for health. With minor modifications, though with an improved external appearance, 240 of these blocks (known as Mark I and II) had been built before the design was superseded in 1964.
To ensure that economical use was made of the available space, rooms were allocated according to the size of the family rather than the rent they could afford. Rents were fixed at the lowest possible level to cover reimbursement of the capital cost of the building over 40 years (at 34 per cent per annum compound interest) plus an element for management, land and water costs. The rent of a standard 120 square feet room was fixed at $14 a month. Electricity, if it was installed at a tenant's request, was at his own expense; communal lighting was provided by the government. Largely because of the increased cost of maintenance, administra- tion and water, rents for all Mark I and II rooms were (for the first time) raised in 1965, the all-inclusive rent of a standard room going up from $14 a month to $18.
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. Mark II H-blocks were modified to provide larger rooms on the ends
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