Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1970-1971 — Page 48

in the urban area being charged $124.50 a month (including rates and water). Workshops are usually in the lowest grade as they are in loca- tions least suitable for retail trade.

100. During 1970-71, the first of the Mark V shops at Sau Mau Ping Estate were let by public tender with a fixed rent and under a three year renewable lease. Under the present approved policy, shops will no longer be allocated to eligible squatter shopkeepers who are cleared for redevelopment, but compensation will be paid instead: only in those cases, which are relatively few, where the commitment has been outstanding prior to the adoption of the compensation policy in late 1969, will shops be allocated directly to cleared squatter shop- keepers. Generally, newly constructed shops will continue to be let by public tender, which are of course, also open to those squatter shop- keepers who benefit from the new and more generous rates of com- pensation approved on the 20th January, 1971.

101. Rents for units in resettlement factories are calculated on a cost basis, as with domestic rooms, but the capital cost includes the full upset price that would be set if the land were put up for sale by public auction, and it is amortized over twenty-one years with com- pound interest at 5% per annum. Here again rates are included in the rent payable by tenants. In the older factories, rentals for a unit of 198 square feet vary from $75 a month on the ground floor to $45 on the top floor, and in the newest factories from $140 to $65 for a unit of 256 square feet.

102. Capital expenditure on estates and factories incurred by Public Works Department amounted to $47,889,181 during the year bringing to $863,863,121 the total spent under this head in the 17 years of the Resettlement Department's existence. The Department's annual recur- rent expenditure has grown from $1,907,431 in 1954-55 to $49,061,140 this year, plus $1,125,061 spent on improvements to estates and licensed areas. Gross rents from estates and factories amounted to $83,333,754 ($64,233,299 nett after transfer of water and rate elements) during the year, and $30,607 or about 0.04% was written off as irrecoverable arrears. Outstanding arrears decreased by $771,888 during the year under review. Other main sources of revenue were payments amounting to $963,494 under the rent advance scheme. $301,664 and $684,955 from cottage rents and permit fees respectively, and $540,856 collected in fees for sites in licensed areas.

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