Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1970-1971 — Page 8

blocks. In April 1954, the Resettlement Department was created to look after the new resettlement blocks, to take over the resettlement cottage areas which had been established in an earlier attempt to solve the squatter problem, and to be generally responsible for the control and resettlement of squatters. Some of these duties had previously been the responsibility of divisions of the Urban Services Department, the Public Works Department and the Social Welfare Office, and officers from these departments formed the nucleus of the new department. By the end of March 1971 the department was managing 23 residential estates and 22 factory blocks, as well as 15 cottage areas. It was the landlord of well over one million people and it had cleared for development over 5.6 square miles of land, nearly 11% of the Colony's total land area.

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4. In September 1964 the Legislative Council approved a White Paper entitled 'Review of Policies for Squatter Control, Resettlement and Government Low Cost Housing' as a general guide to future policy. The White Paper provided for the setting up of 'licensed areas' under the control of the Commissioner for Resettlement in which, on payment of licence fees, the genuinely homeless would be able to erect huts and where certain minimum services would be provided. As a corollary to the establishment of licensed areas, strict control of new squatting elsewhere would continue to be enforced. Existing tolerated structures would be contained and their removal effected by the normal process of clearance and resettlement. The White Paper then set out six pri- orities to be followed, as far as possible, in determining eligibility for resettlement, and it recommended an increased resettlement building

programme.

5. A further result of the 1964 White Paper was the appointment of a Housing Board in June 1965. The Board's main functions are to keep the housing situation and housing policy under review and to recom- mend changes. The Commissioner for Resettlement is an ex-officio member of the Board. Its sixth report, for the year 1970 has yet to be tabled in the Legislative Council, but the main recommendations as to resettlement are that:

(a) a review of the present method of assessing rents for Resettle-

ment domestic accommodation is required;

(b) the Public Works Department's scheme for the conversion and redevelopment of Shek Kip Mei Resettlement Estate should be undertaken;

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