CHAPTER III
SQUATTER CONTROL
17. The Squatter Control sub-division of the Operations Division is responsible primarily for preventing the erection of new unlawful struc- tures on Crown land, leased land and the rooftops and kitchen rooftops of private residential, commercial and industrial premises within the urban area and in Tsuen Wan district of the New Territories. It also has other subsidiary duties which are mentioned below.
18. The sub-division was reorganized in November, as a result of which the urban area and Tsuen Wan were divided into four districts for squatter control purposes. Each of these districts, Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, Kwun Tong and Tsuen Wan, is under the charge of a Resettle- ment Officer, and is divided into two sections, each under an Assistant Resettlement Officer. Sections are broken down into a number of patrol areas which are the responsibility of Area Officers and their supporting staff. These patrol areas are further sub-divided into six zones, with the object of ensuring that the whole area is inspected once a week. In recent years it has not been possible to achieve this object, but the strengthening of the sub-division during the year under review has gone a long way towards making possible more frequent patrolling. The Area Officer is required to know his patrol area intimately, no easy task when each area contains from 1,500 to 2,000 structures and between 6,000 and 15,000 people, and covers anything up to 3,000 acres of hilly ground.
19. The function of the patrolling Area Officer is basically to see that his area remains 'frozen', that is that no unauthorized new building takes place. Structures which are presumed to have been erected before August 1954 or which have since been expressly 'tolerated' following subsequent surveys, are specially marked and records are kept of them. When the Area Officer finds an entirely new building or sees an un- authorized extension to, or conversion of, a tolerated structure, he tries to persuade the owner to demolish it himself. If the owner fails to do this, the building is demolished by the department and the materials con- fiscated are then used to help squatters and victims of natural disasters to build huts in controlled temporary resite areas (see paragraph 21).
20. During the year 14,850 new structures and extensions were de- molished by squatter control staff, an increase of 1,540 on the previous year. 1,113 of these were rooftop buildings. 410 tons of materials, mostly
9