Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1970-1971 — Page 39

CHAPTER 6

THE COTTAGE AREAS

GENERAL

69. The first cottage areas were established in 1948 for squatters in central areas who were offered sites in outlying districts to build their own cottages. It was then thought that these areas would not be re- quired for development in the foreseeable future. However, because of the rapid progress of development many of these cottages are now being cleared for public works projects. For instance, the Ho Man Tin/King's Park Cottage Areas situated in the central urban district in Kowloon will no longer be in existence after the last phase of the Ho Man Tin Development Stage VII Clearance scheduled to take place in early April 1971. At present, there are still 15 cottage areas in Kowloon, Hong Kong Island and the New Territories with a total of 55,825 authorized population; 5,041 accepted unauthorized persons; and 3,918 unauthorized persons. Authorized persons are cottage permit-holders; accepted unauthorized persons are residents whose names do not appear on the permit but are accepted because they were included in the census (1961 for Ho Man Tin/King's Park and 1963 for other cottage areas); unauthorized persons are residents neither on the permit nor included in the census. The figure had dropped considerably from 80,000 in 1964 to 55,825 on 31st March, 1971. A list of the 15 cottage areas together with the population of each is at Appendix 3.

70. Many of the 3,077 stone or brick and 1,778 wooden huts in the cottage areas were put up by the settlers themselves, although a number have been built by welfare or non-profit-making organizations. Prominent among these sponsors were the National Catholic Welfare Conference, the Methodist Board of Missions, the Church World Service and the Hong Kong Settlers Housing Corporation. Most agencies have now found it more convenient to transfer ownership of their cottages to Government, to be administered by the Resettlement Department. Apart from permit fees, rents are charged for government-owned huts in the cottage areas. Further information on rents and permit fees charged can be found in Chapter 9.

71. During the year 236 cottages were cleared from Ho Man Tin/ King's Park Cottage Area for the formation of an access road to a 'borrow area' for the airport runway extension. A further 11 were cleared from Chai Wan Cottage Area to make way for the Chai Wan

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