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not clearcut and they need to be and will be kept constantly under review.
The same arguments apply to the stated aim that children under six years of age should be allocated the same amount of space as an adult. Such an aim, if implemented, would immediately swell our resettlement or rehousing commitment by 12%, which must be considered against the claims of other classes of persons I have referred to earlier. Nevertheless, the approved policy of allocating 35 square feet per adult in Mark VI accommodation will result in the effective allocation of a minimum of 31 square feet per person overall.
Those of us who have listened to His Excellency the Acting Governor speaking at the opening of the 500th Resettlement Block at Lam Tin twelve days ago will have noted the points made: namely, that new buildings now under construction and included in the programme for the next 6 years will include over 400,000 more resettlement units; that these new estates will be better provided with community facilities, commercial and otherwise, than has been possible in the past; that the design of the domestic flats in these future estates is to be identical with that used in the hitherto quite separate low-cost housing programme. Surely these are significant steps in the right direction.
Turning to management generally of the resettlement estates, may I reiterate that the multi-storey estate form of our resettlement undertaking came about as an emergency measure some sixteen years ago. We realized then, as we do now, that we did not quite know to what new problems these vast communities, living their uniform lives in uniform surroundings, would give rise. Mistaken though we have been, we envisaged then that resettling some 300,000 squatters in perhaps 150 blocks built over some 200 acres of land would finish the job. Today we find we have 1,100,000 tenants who are direct tenants of the Government and more are on the way. How many of us have paused to think that the obligations of an ordinary landlord ends at the proper maintenance of the buildings he owns, but his rights extend not only to the collection of rents, but also to the final sanction of eviction. However, these people cannot be evicted without re-creating those very dangers which the establishment of the tenancies was intended to remove. The situation becomes complicated because the landlord happens to be the Government and the trustee happens to be the Urban Council. Government cannot neglect its other responsibilities and neither can the Urban Council.
We have not therefore neglected the need for social, commercial and other service facilities for our estates. In the older estates, we have improvised by utilizing the ground floors and rooftops and turned them into schools, welfare establishments, as well as shops. We have allowed our open space in these estates to be used as hawker bazaars, markets, storage space and sitting out areas. In the more recent estates, we have provided restaurants, annexe schools, and welfare complexes and we have no lack of voluntary agencies to operate them for us.
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allowed our open space in these estates to be used as hawker bazaars, markets, storage space and sitting out areas. In the more recent estates, we have provided restaurants, annexe schools, and welfare complexes and we have no lack of voluntary agencies to operate them for us.
The feasibility of providing individual water taps for each room in the older Mark I and II blocks has been investigated recently, but I regret to say it was found to be impracticable owing to the very large amount of work required for additional drainage, which would have meant complete decantation of the blocks affected, for which alternative accommodation must first be found but is not easily available.
It is, however, difficult to see how these somewhat tentative social services can be developed to reasonable standards until the earlier Mark I and II buildings have been converted into self-contained flats. The completion of an experimental conversion of one block at Wong Tai Sin has given rise to a proposal of a wider approach at Shek Kip Mei. Quite apart from the gigantic costs and the many technical resources needed for the purpose, it will take time, much patient effort and the willing co-operation of the present tenants of the estate who will be displaced during the process of improvement.
For years this Council, which is the competent authority for Resettlement Estates in the urban area, has worked hard to lay down the policy and issue management directives; but on good and humanitarian grounds it has also allowed our rules to be bent to meet the needs of individual families and of the new communities we have created. For instance, in the past, we have been far too lenient in allowing family additions which has contributed substantially to our overcrowding problems. It was not until recently that the idea of constructing a series of modular markets in the estates, in the hope of bringing them under more disciplined control, was thought of. The acceptance by the legislature of the increased financial commitment was readily given for constructing such improved marketing facilities in certain estates.
The improvements mentioned in His Excellency the Acting Governor's recent speech are, I am sure Members will agree, big steps forward, paving the way towards improved management standards of resettlement estates; but they are by no means the panacea of all the faults we can find in our resettlement estates. We should not overlook the fact that it is by no means easy to recruit and train sufficient numbers of men to run the new estates when the building programmes since 1964 have been geared to providing resettlement accommodation for as many as 1 million in 10 years, but we are not complacent. We are recruiting and training them as fast and intensively as we can. Nor should we forget that this Council is the competent authority for the management of resettlement estates in the urban area. It has been in
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