Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1966-1967 — Page 47

of sizes available. By the end of March 1967, altogether 7,198 ground floor rooms had been let as shops and 1,195 as workshops, the latter being in locations where the opportunities for retail trade are minimal. Among those set aside for shops, 827 bays were allocated as restaurants, 408 for the sale of fresh provisions such as meat and fish, and 63 for the sale of roast meat. The rest house a very wide miscellany of other trades including hairdressers and dry-cleaning depots. The ground floor workshops similarly contain a great variety of small enterprise, while tenants have always been allowed to carry on certain simple and in- offensive cottage industries in their upper floor domestic rooms, such as tailoring, assembling of plastic goods, knitting and so on. In the northern part of Wang Tau Hom estate, where most of the ground floor premises were originally allocated for use as primary schools, it had long become evident that shopping facilities were inadequate, with the result that settlers were running shops in their domestic rooms on the upper floors, contrary to the conditions of tenancy. A special single-storey building housing twelve shops was therefore built and allocated during the year.

97. One of the problems arising from the haste with which the original estates had to be built and occupied is that, at a time when resettlement factories (see Chapter 7) had not been foreseen, many work- shops or cottage industries were admitted which the passage of time has shown to be unsatisfactory neighbours for domestic tenants. The depart- ment began a survey during the year of all the small scale industries which are in operation in the old estates, and when it is completed it is hoped that the information gathered will make it possible to plan a satisfactory and feasible re-distribution through voluntary transfer else- where.

RESTAURANTS

98. The majority of restaurants in the Mark I and II blocks range from 240 to 480 square feet, although a few are substantially larger than this. The statutory health requirement that one-third of the floor area must be employed for kitchen, scullery and food preparation, appreciably reduces the permissible seating area and it is therefore hardly surprising that the owners tend to encroach onto the open space in front of and behind their premises, where storage, food preparation, cooking and the seating of customers create obstruction and uncleanlines. During the year, the Urban Council approved proposals which would permit, wherever space is reasonably available, the erection of permanent covered outside seating in front of restaurants in Mark I and II blocks. At the

37