WHITE PAPER REVISES POLICIES ON SQUATTERS AND RESETTLEMENT
A WHITE Paper, setting out Hong Kong Government's re- vised policies for the control of squatters and for the planning and programming of resettlement during the next ten years, was laid before the Legislative Council recently.
It outlined new procedures which will enable people who are genuine- ly homeless to be allocated sites on which they can erect their huts without fear of disturbance.
The White Paper also lays down a firm policy under which the eligi- bility of various groups of people for resettlement will be recognised. Finally, it deals with the targets for planning and building resettlement estates and Government low-cost housing over the next ten years, the cost of these programmes and pos- sible measures for the co-ordination
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Colony's future housing the policy.
The revised policies now proposed in the White Paper represent, in general, an acceptance in principle of the recommendations of the Working Party which was set up in June, 1963 to advise Government whether there should be any changes in the policies and programmes for squatter clear- ance and resettlement, and low-cost housing.
Licensed Areas
It is proposed to set up Licensed Areas in which genuinely homeless people may be allowed to erect tem- porary huts. A licence fee of $3 a month will be charged for all domes- tic structures. The aim is to provide initially enough sites in these Licens. ed Areas to rehouse some 60,000 people a year. Existing collections of "tolerated structures" will be "frozen" at their present levels.
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The White Paper accepts Working Party's view that tenants of dangerous buildings should be given. priority for early rehousing.
It states that experience has proved the need to revise Government's ten-year-old multi-storey resettlement
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policy so as to embrace other cate- gories which merit consideration for resettlement.
Six categories are listed, headed, by (1) former domestic tenants of buildings demolilshed as dangerous and subject to the Demolished Build- ings (Redevelopment of Sites) Or- dinance, and then followed, in a descending order of priority, (2) special compassionate cases (the number to be determined annually by the Urban Council) and certain victims of natural disasters, (3) the present occupants of cottage resettle- ment or resite areas needed for transit centres or permanent develop- ment, (4) people at present occupying tolerated structures on Crown land required for development, (5) tenants of overcrowded resettlement rooms, and (6) pavement dwellers occupying tolerated structures.
Compensation
Government also took note of the Working Party's suggestions about the disposal of compensation which might be due to tenants of dangerous buildings from their landlords.
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The arrangement described in the White Paper is that, for every unit of resettlement accommodation space for one adult, to which the family is entitled, the former tenant will deposit $400 as rent in advance for his family's resettlement accom- modation.
The sum of $400 represents just over half the present capital cost of each resettlement unit, which stands at about $740, and it will be returned to the tenant in the form of a re- duced rent for the first ten years of his tenancy.
Arrangements will also be made for families from dangerous build- ings who wish to take advantage of the Rent Advance Scheme but can- not immediately put up the money. They will be entitled to move into Licensed Areas and to take up the offer at any time during the ensuing twelve months.
"Fresh difficulties and problems may intervene, but the adoption of the measures proposed will signalize the community's readiness and deter- mination to attack the problem with renewed vigour and momentum."
Building Programme
The White Paper states that Government's new policies would be meaningless without an adequate programme of resettlement and low- cost housing construction.
It outlines a Government building programme over a six-year period to March 31, 1970, at an estimated cost of $766 million for 900,000 resettle- ment units and an estimated cost of $197 million for 170,000 units in Government lowcost housing estates,
A Technical Planning Target of 1,900,000 units has been adopted for the ten-year period to April, 1974 at an estimated cost of $1,691 million. This target has been set purely for planning purposes but its adoption will make it possible to allow enough time for sites to consolidate, for the planning of services, and for indus- trial and other development to be completed near sites in areas lacking such facilities.
In conclusion, the White Paper states that during the past 15 years the effort to contain squatting and to rehouse those whom circumstances have forced to squat has been one of the most conspicuous aspects of Hong Kong's problem of people,
Statistics
The Colonial Secretary, Mr. E. B. Teesdale, moving resolution to adopt the White Paper as a policy guide, said: "When a mountaineer is making a steep and arduous ascent, he is more inclined to look upwards at the difficulties of the way ahead than to stop and look back at all the the obstacles and dangers he has already surmounted and which now lie behind him. So in Hong Kong, after a decade of strenuous effort, we are still looking upwards towards (Continued on page 93)
THE HONG KONG & FAR EAST BUILDER-VOLUME 19, NUMBER 4
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