Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1956-1957 — Page 58

C. Screening Section.

1 Executive Officer

1 Relieving Officer

1 Area Officer

D. Squatter Control Section.

Roof-top Squatter Prevention Section.

1 Cadet Officer, Class II

1 Executive Officer

Field Staff.

2 Area Officers 30 Screeners

2 Motor Drivers

3 Landbailiffs

2 Settlement Supervisors

55 Area Officers

18 Clerks

15 Motor Drivers

132 Junior Staff

E. Casual Labour for New Construction Work.

No establishment. Numbers in employment on 31.3.57 were 426 (all junior staff).

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

CHAPTER XI

THE ECONOMICS OF RESETTLEMENT

117. When the first multi-storey buildings were under con- struction in the middle of 1954, it was decided that the rent for a standard room of 120 sq. 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 33 per cent, of the original capital cost, plus a figure of $10 a sq. foot for the land, (half upset price).

118. 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.

119. The 1954 rent calculation did not include in the total capital cost the value of the land required for roads, recreation

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