LAND AND HOUSING
131
in the latest blocks of seven storeys. At the end of the year there were 22 resettlement flatted factories, containing a total of 1,860,000 square feet of net working space, mostly situated, in or near existing resettlement estates. Rents are calculated to cover administration costs and a return on capital, including an element for the value of the land, within 21 years at five per cent per annum compound interest. These rents, per square foot, vary from 38 cents a month, for a ground floor unit, to 23 cents for one on the top floor in the older factories, and from 55 cents, on the ground floor, to 25 cents on the top floor in the new factories. All rents are inclusive of rates. In administering these factory tenancies, the Resettlement Department checks machinery and electrical and floor loading. There is liaison with the Labour and Fire Services Department to secure satisfactory working conditions and safety from fire and other hazards. The programme of installing additional electrical rising mains and individual circuit-breakers to factories, in order to catch up with increasing demands for electrical power, continued during the year.
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There still remain 15 cottage resettlement areas in various parts of the urban area and the New Territories, where a new one was completed during the year. The number of occupants in these areas tends to dwindle as clearance for development goes on and they are resettled in multi-storey accommodation. However, cottage areas still house 72,486 people. Several of these areas contain many small factories, shops and workshops, together with schools, clinics and welfare centres of various types, which are largely established by voluntary agencies who generously continue to maintain these facilities.
SQUATTER CONTROL AND CLEARANCE
During the year 48,473 people were cleared and resettled and 68 acres of land were freed for development. These operations also entailed the clearance of 622 shops and workshops, of which 230 were resettled and 402 were found to be ineligible for resettle- ment due to their limited size or, in the case of shops, because the premises were not in operation during a special shop survey carried out in 1965. In addition, 178 factories had to be cleared. Of these, 47 were resettled into multi-storey factory blocks, while 63 were not eligible for resettlement and 43 rejected resettlement. A further