Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1963-1964 — Page 21

and carried out drainage and paving improvements. The section also designed a Government building and road. Government assisted the reconstruction of several of the larger schools at Rennie's Mill, two of which were being rebuilt at the end of the year with the help of a Govern- ment subsidy and interest-free loans,

CHAPTER VI

THE MULTI-STOREY ESTATES

44. Of the 675,000 persons who now live in accommodation admin- istered by the Resettlement Department the great majority live in the multi-storey estates. These are mainly in urban Kowloon, but have also spread to the south side of Hong Kong island and the New Territories. The origins of multi-storey resettlement housing go back only 10 years to 1954, when two and three-storey temporary buildings known as Bowring Bungalows were built to house the victims of the disastrous fire which occurred at Shek Kip Mei on Christmas Day 1953. Meanwhile, the' Public Works Department planned and built taller buildings, eight being completed at Shek Kip Mei in the summer of 1954. The basic design was a six-storey block, H-shaped in plan, with sixty-four rooms on the long arms of the H on each floor, and two water standpipes, six communal flush latrines and a communal open space for washing clothes on the cross piece. Access to rooms was by balconies running round the four sides of each wing on every floor, the buildings being entered by four staircases, one at each corner.

45. After these buildings were completed and occupied they were subjected to careful scrutiny in order to determine what improvements in design should be made in the light of experience. Government decided that future buildings could reasonably be of seven storeys instead of six, and should have flat roofs strengthened and fenced so that they might add to the recreational space. Another improvement was the provision of communal bath-rooms on the scale of one to about 35 domestic rooms. A further modification was the conversion of a number of ground floor rooms into shops or workshops measuring 120 or 240 square feet in which those squatters who had shops or workshops before being resettled could continue in business. Some of the later blocks built from 1961 onwards also have shop-rooms of 155 and 310 square feet. At the end of the year 3,961 ground floor rooms in all estates were let as shops and 866 as workshops. Of the shops, 518 bays were used for restaurants, 226 for the sale of fresh provisions, meat and fish and fruit and vegetables, 30

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