127. By the end of the year the programme for fitting ventilation fans and overload devices in estate lifts had been completed, as had the programme for replacing manually-operated switches for public lighting by automatic time-switches.
128. 285 major and 758 minor repair or improvement jobs were carried out by the section during the year, at a cost of $450,000.
CHAPTER 9
FINANCE
129. Settlers in cottage areas pay quarterly permit fees for the sites they occupy. The amount is laid down in the Resettlement Regulations, and varies according to the size of the site and the location of the area; for a typical site of 160 square feet the permit fee is $5 a quarter in outlying areas and $15 a quarter in the more central areas. If the permittee does not own the premises he is living in, he also pays rent either to the Government or to a welfare agency. Rents for Government-owned cottages are $10 or $15 a month according to
location.
130. The Government's policy in fixing rents in domestic estates is to recover the original capital cost (including an assumed figure of $14 per square foot for land including site formation, piling and engineering cost, but excluding land to be occupied by schools, play- grounds, roads, etc.), amortized over 40 years at a rate of 31% compound interest a year, plus all annually recurrent expenditure including the cost of administration and maintenance. Rents are worked out in respect of a particular Mark of block, on the basis of contract prices for the earliest ones to be constructed, and apply to all blocks of that Mark irrespective of location and date of con- struction. They are liable to revision from time to time to meet rising costs of maintenance and management. Except where the ratable value of the accommodation is below the minimum at which rates are charged there is an additional element for rates which is collected with the rent. This amounts to about 17% of the ratable value in urban areas and 11% in the New Territories. A further charge is made for water, varying according to the size of the room, except in the later Mark IV and Mark V domestic rooms, restaurants, factories and certain types of shops where individual meters have been installed and the tenant pays
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