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LAND AND HOUSING
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 to families cleared from better than average structures.
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 ones in that access to domestic rooms is from a central common 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 serving the upper 10 floors from the ground floor. These new blocks cost more to build but they represent a great advance in that they provide better ventilation, more privacy and large open spaces between the buildings. 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 1966, 168 blocks of both kinds had been built, bring- ing the total number administered by the Resettlement Department to 408, housing 829,757 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 $48,307,099 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 nearly 90,000) and a wide range of community facilities must be provided. Ground floor rooms are set aside to be let as shops or workshops to settlers who operated similar businesses in the clearance area. Shops are of various sizes. Those of 240 square feet in the Mark I and II estates are divided into four grades and are available at $200, $150, $115 or $80 a month rent according to locality. In the Mark III and IV estates the sizes vary again and, as with domestic rooms, rents