Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1956-1957 — Page 8

all was that almost every site needed for permanent purposes such as housing, schools, and factories was occupied either partially or completely by squatters and could not therefore be built upon until the squatters were cleared. The development of the Colony as a whole was in fact being seriously held up. 4. The decision taken by the Government after the Kowloon City Fire was to establish resettlement areas into which the squatters could be gradually moved. There they would be offered sites on which they would have to build huts or one- storey cottages at their own expense. The more centrally situated areas such as Homantin and King's Park were known as "approved" areas and in these the cottages had to conform to certain minimum standards and no wooden huts were allowed. Others, such as Chai Wan and Ngau Tau Kok, were known as "tolerated" areas and were for the poorer squatters who could not afford to do more than build small wooden huts. It was hoped at the time that those squatters who were finding it hard to make a living in Hong Kong would return to China when conditions there became more normal.

5. In 1951 it was decided that the administration of these cottage resettlement areas should become the responsibility of a new Division of the Urban Services Department which would work under the general direction of the Urban Council. The screening of squatters to determine their eligibility for resettle- ment, the clearance operations, and the patrols to prevent new squatting still remained however the province of other departments.

6. Progress was slow for two reasons: the majority of squatters either could not afford to build to the standard required in the "approved" areas or were unwilling to move to the outlying "tolerated" areas because they considered they were too far from those urban districts where they could obtain employment. In order to speed up the development of the "approved" areas the Urban Council therefore decided to allow building contractors to build cottages for sale to persons eligible for resettlement. This system was not a success for various reasons, one of which was that the majority of squatters could not afford to pay the prices asked by these contractors for the cottages they built.

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