D. Squatter Control Section

Roof-top Squatter Prevention Section

I Cadet Officer, Class II

1 Executive Officer

1 Confidential Assistant

E. Casual Labour for New Construction Work

Field Staff

1 Land Bailiff

1

4 Settlement Supervisors

50 Area Officers

18 Clerks

12 Motor Drivers

132 Junior Staff

No establishment. Numbers in employment on 31.3.58 were eighty seven (all junior staff).

Note. The term 'junior staff' includes Office Assistants, Messengers, Watchmen, Foremen, Artisans, Gangers, semi-skilled labourers and unskilled labourers.

CHAPTER XII

THE ECONOMICS OF RESETTLEMENT

140. When the first multi-storey buildings were under construction in the middle of 1954, it was decided that the rent for a standard room of 120 square feet should be fixed at a figure which would cover all annually recurrent costs and would also provide for the recovery in forty years, with interest at three and a half per cent, of the original capital cost, plus a figure of $10 a sq. foot for the land (half upset price).

141. The cost of construction, including site formation and piling, of a seven-storey block of 432 rooms of 120 sq. feet was estimated at $780,000, or about $1,806 per room, and to this figure was added the sum of $230,000 for the site of 23,000 sq. feet, and $15,600 for Public Works Department supervision (2% of the estimated cost of construction), making a total of $1,025,600 or $2,375 a room. On the basis of these figures and on the assumption that annually recurrent costs would be about $17,200 the rent for each room worked out at $13 a month, to which $1 a month was added for water. This has remained the standard rent up to the present.

142. The 1954 rent calculation did not include in the total capital cost the value of the land required for roads, recreation spaces and space between blocks, but merely the actual area built upon, which in a whole estate is less than fifty per cent of the total site area. Moreover no amount was included for the estimated cost of engineering works such as roads, drains and water supply which are normally required before the development of any site chosen for a resettlement estate can be com- pleted. The following table gives particulars of the actual capital cost

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