Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1969-1970 — Page 9

t

(c) for future Resettlement estates the standard and finish should be

the same as for Government Low Cost Housing;

(d) further inducements (or compulsion) will be required to secure

movement from the central to the outlying areas;

(e) further examination of the conversion of the Mark I and II

Resettlement blocks will be required;

(f) provision should be made for the construction of 300,000 in- dividual units of Resettlement accommodation between 1st April, 1969 and 31st March, 1975;

(g) at least one site in the vicinity of large estates should be reserved for cinema purposes and, in planning estates, provision should be made for the reservation of land for commercial development to provide entertainment and other facilities for estate residents.

REVIEW OF THE YEAR

6. 1969 may in retrospect be considered as a turning point in the development of resettlement. For the first fifteen years of the depart- ment's life, the emphasis had inevitably been on the urgent need for the clearance of land for development and the rapid rehousing of large numbers of persons to permanent, inexpensive, accommodation. This necessary emphasis on speed has not been conducive to a gradual build-up of orderly management and is reflected in the unsatisfactory conditions now prevailing in most estates.

7. The problem was aggravated by the disturbances of 1967 when the Police had more urgent duties to attend to, and large numbers of unemployed persons, particularly residents of resettlement estates, turned to hawking for a living. Driven from the main streets, these persons set up shops in the estates, building large tin sheet structures in the car parks and public spaces and often carrying on very large scale trades in complete defiance of both public health provisions and resettlement rules. A survey in early 1969 showed 12,000 hawkers of various kinds, all operating from structures larger than the permitted size. This added considerably to the problems of the already over- stretched resettlement staff.

8. Fortunately the year was a quiet one, in that only a few new blocks were completed and handed over by the Public Works Depart- ment, and therefore no major clearances took place. This gave time for consolidation. Considerable time was devoted to the better training of departmental staff, most of whom are very young and lack experience.

3