two-room self-contained flats of 548 sq. ft. This type of conversion is being carried out on the top floor of Block O at Tai Hang Tung, and is illustrated at Appendix II (Drawing No. 3-Diagram C). These flats will also be used as quarters for the estate staff.
75. Ground floor rooms in multi-storey estates have been found to be suitable for use as shops and workshops and all persons formerly operating such businesses in squatter areas are now given the opportunity of renting such rooms for business purposes. Normally two rooms are rented and the dividing centre partition removed to make a shop or workshop of 240 square feet.
76. It will be apparent therefore that the design of the multi-storey resettlement buildings is one of remarkable flexibility. Any attempt to prophesy how soon the conversions described above might be carried out would, however, be extremely rash since there are still over a quarter of a million. squatters to be resettled. All that can be stated with certainty is that the density in the multi-storey estates will be reduced as soon as it becomes possible to do so without making it impossible to resettle the remaining squatters.
Note: Plans showing the Location and Extent of the Resettlement
Estates may be found at Appendix III.
CHAPTER VI
THE COTTAGE AREAS
77. The decision in 1954 to embark on a large programme for the construction of multi-storey buildings did not mean the abandonment of the former method of resettlement in tem- porary one-storey buildings. The squatter problem was so serious that every possible means of solving it had to be pursued. It was for this reason that the Government, immediately after the Shek Kip Mei fire, not only provided funds to build two- and three-storey concrete buildings at Shek Kip Mei but also voted a sum of $400,000 for building one-storey cottages in the cottage resettlement areas.
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