Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1963-1964 — Page 20

MARINE DEPARTMENT LIBRARY

Conference has built 2,744 stone cottages, the Methodist Board of Mission 522 and the Church World Service 401. Another body, the Hong Kong Settlers Housing Corporation, was set up in September 1952, financed partly by Government and partly by private subscription. In the next few years it built over 1,500 cottages which it sold under a hirc- purchase arrangement to their occupants, who are in full ownership of them. Some of the voluntary agencies prefer to administer the cottages they have built; that is, they collect the rent, manage the tenancies, and carry out maintenance and repair work under the department's general guidance. Other agencies have transferred the ownership of their cottages to Government, and the Resettlement Department administers them. Permit fees and rents are dealt with in Chapter X and Appendix VII.

41. Many of the cottage areas are now situated in the urban area, though at the time they were established they were considered to be in outlying districts. They are therefore increasingly becoming ripe for redevelopment, a process which is likely to speed up in the next few years. In the period under review 391 cottages, 16 factories and 9 shops were cleared and 3,490 persons rehoused in resettlement estates. These removals occurred in the Tung Tau, Lai Chi Kok, Shek Shan and Ho Man Tin cottage areas.

42. This process of curtailment is balanced by fresh responsibilities in the New Territories where new cottages continue to be built. There are already cottage areas at Tsuen Wan and Yuen Long. A further 37 cottages and 40 units in two-storey structures were completed in the Shui Ngau Ling cottage area near Yuen Long at the end of the year, the funds being provided by Oxfam through Catholic Relief Services. The department also had discussions with the New Territories Administration during the year which will lead to the establishment of a new area at Fo Tan, outside Sha Tin, with money contributed from the Community Relief Trust Fund. These cottages will house persons who lost their homes at Sha Tin as a result of Typhoon Wanda in 1962.

43. A notable feature of the year was the gazetting of Rennie's Mill Village as a cottage resettlement area at the end of June 1963 and the imposition of permit fees with effect from 1st January, 1964. The area staff successfully completed the collection of permit fees for the first quarter of the new financial year by the end of the period under review. Development work which had begun in the previous financial year con- tinued. The Waterworks Office of the Public Works Department installed a permanent piped mains water supply, while the Works Section of the Resettlement Department replaced offshore latrines by aqua privies,

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