Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1965-1966 — Page 7

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW OF THE YEAR

INTRODUCTION

HONG KONG is noted for its skylines. The harbour is surrounded by lofty peaks providing natural vantage points for viewing the huge amphitheatre of Victoria and Kowloon. Along the northern shores of the Island and on the Kowloon peninsula, modern skyscrapers rise irregularly among the three or four-storey pre-war tenement buildings. These provide the second, man-made, skyline--no less impressive especially at night when cut by swathes of neon-lit thoroughfares.

2. It is on the fringes of this amphitheatre that the Resettlement Department and the squatters with whom it is concerned have made their principal imprint on the surface of the land. Clinging to the lower mountain slopes or clustered in those valleys that have not yet heard the roar of bulldozers are the homes of half a million squatters, a grey- brown mass of shacks, some glistening with fresh tin sheets applied to protect them from the ravages of fire and storm. Here and there, in a more regular pattern, resettlement areas of stone-built cottages still remain as a reminder of the first efforts at resettling an earlier genera- tion of squatters. But land is scarce in Hong Kong and the cottage areas took up more space than they freed. So, over the last twelve years, the first resettlement estates, easily distinguishable from private development by their regular 'H', 'T' or 'L' shaped blocks of seven, eight and now sixteen storeys, have grown-mainly in a great broken arc along the Kowloon foothills. Below and between them, on new reclamations and wherever new formed land can be spared for a year or two before development devours it are the 'resite areas', neatly spaced rows of tin-clad huts housing the newly homeless for whom more estates are continually being built. In recent years, the same pattern has been repeated in the new town of Tsuen Wan/Kwai Chung, beyond the rim of the hills to the north-west of Kowloon.

3. This is the setting for the work of the Resettlement Department, illustrating its main functions: negatively, to prevent further squatter encroachments; positively, to clear squatters from land needed for de-