CHAPTER VI
THE COTTAGE AREAS
A.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
78. Resettlement is still being provided for a comparatively small number of squatters in five of the fourteen cottage areas where it is still possible to form more sites. The majority of the areas consist of a series of terraces of one-storey buildings on steep hillsides on the outskirts of the built-up areas, both on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon. At the time of their first development they were areas not required for any other purposes, being either beyond the reach of the urban system of roads and drainage, or hillsides so steep that any other form of development would be costly and difficult.
79. The Government's capital expenditure in these areas is normally limited to the cost of the formation of the terraces, the building of necessary roads, paths, drains and latrines, and the installation of a certain number of water standpipes and bath-houses. Once a cottage site has been formed and allocated it is left to the squatter himself or to a voluntary organization to build the hut or cottage. The poorer settlers were able to do no more than rebuild their existing huts or build new wooden huts, but if they were lucky they may have obtained a brick or stone cottage built by a charitable or non-profit making organization. The better-off settlers may have been able to employ a contractor to build quite an attractive small bungalow or may have purchased one of the cottages built by private building contractors between 1951 and the end of 1954 for sale to persons eligible for resettlement. There is thus a great variety of domestic buildings to be found in these areas, in addition to which there are a certain number of factories and large permanent school buildings and welfare centres. The difference in the geographical settings of the various cottage areas adds to their diversity, which is in striking contrast to the uniformity of the multi-storey estates.
80. At the end of the year there were 14,364 domestic structures, 5,902 of which were wooden huts built by the permittees themselves, while the remaining 8,462 were stone or brick cottages built by different organizations or by settlers. In the cottage areas there were also seventy eight factories and small workshops, and 395 shops. Details of the buildings may be found in the appendix to this chapter.
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