cottages. The title to these cottages has been transferred to Government and they have been administered as Government-owned cottages. The Methodist Board of Missions have built 194 cottages: 79 cottages at Wesley Village, So Kon Po and 115 cottages at Asbury Village, Tai Wo Hau. These villages are administered by the Methodists, under the supervision of the Resettlement Department staff. Work has started on another village, at Chai Wan, which will have approximately 400 stone cottages. Church World Service have built 516 cottages, which are administered the same way as the Methodist cottages. A further 706 cottages, built in small groups by various other charitable organizations, have been donated to settlers.
68. On 1st April, 1960, the cottage areas contained altogether 14,178 domestic structures, 4,899 of which were wooden huts a decrease of 674 from the previous year, and 9,279 stone or brick cottages ---an increase of 11. There were also 73 factories and small workshops and 397 shops. Details of the buildings may be found in the Appendix to this Chapter.
69. In 1959/60 revenue from permit fees amounted to $1,049,565 and rent from Government-owned cottages amounted to $276,680.
70. The number of persons to the acre in the cottage areas varies considerably from one area to another but the average is about 400, as against an average at present of about 2,000 persons to the acre in the multi-storey estates. This is not an entirely straight forward comparison, since much of the land in a cottage area consists of steep hillside that cannot be used. Living conditions in a small cottage on a hillside terrace are in general, however, pleasanter than those in a room of a similar size in a multi-storey building, even though they may be less convenient, particularly in wet weather, as the communal water stand- pipes and latrines are usually some distance away.
71. When they were first established the majority of the cottage areas were on the outskirts of the built up areas of Hong Kong and Kowloon, where the land they occupied was not required for any other purpose, being either beyond the reach of the urban system of roads and drainage, or on hillsides so steep that any other form of develop- ment would be costly or difficult. However, the tide of urban develop- ment has now reached many of these areas and with the general shortage of land it is probable that more and more sites in the cottage areas will have to be used for more intensive development. Moreover the cottage areas, besides being wasteful of land, are uneconomic; while single- storey cottages are relatively cheap to build the capital cost of forming
21