1964 — Page 86

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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

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genuine cause for grievance when people, whose business, goodwill and roots are in Hong Kong and where their children are going to school, are resettled in Kowloon or the New Territories? Is it possible to adopt a policy for those who live in Hong Kong to be resettled in Hong Kong, and those who live in Kowloon to be resettled in Kowloon, etc., to obviate such hardship?

THE COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT replied as follows:

Yes Sir, the need to minimize the disruption of people's lives has always been an important factor in allocating resettlement accommodation, and the invariable practice is to place people in the nearest estate in which accommodation is available at the time when their squatter structures have to be cleared.

I agree that hardship and a sense of grievance can and do arise when people have to be resettled far from their previous homes and places of work, and we try to avoid this as far as possible by adjusting the clearance programme to the completion dates of new resettlement blocks. This is, however, particularly difficult on Hong Kong Island where existing congestion and the difficulties of terrain have made it impossible to build anything like sufficient accommodation to house all those who would prefer to be resettled on the Island. There are approximately 213,000 squatters on the Island, and the existing resettlement programme will provide accommodation for only 71,000 at Chai Wan, Aberdeen and Tin Wan between now and 1967.

The position in Kowloon is at present much better, although it has been and will continue to be necessary to resettle some Kowloon residents at Tsuen Wan or Kwai Chung. These will mostly come from the north-west of the Kowloon peninsula.

It will be evident that it is, unhappily, not possible at present to adopt a policy that those who live in Hong Kong should be resettled in Hong Kong, unless urgently required development is to be held up and thousands of squatters on the Island are condemned to remain squatters for an indefinite period. On the other hand, it is possible to give an assurance that no one resident in Kowloon need be resettled in Hong Kong, (Laughter) although some will undoubtedly have to move to Tsuen Wan or Kwai Chung.

MR. SALES: -Mr. Chairman, may I, on behalf of the Kowloon residents, thank the Commissioner for Resettlement for that assurance which is certainly most welcome. (Laughter).

MR. WATSON: -May I thank him on behalf of the Hong Kong residents. (Laughter).

MRS. ELLIOTT: -Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the people themselves, may I ask that efforts should be made to find new sites for resettlement because it is very important for people to be resettled on the same side of the harbour on which they have been living?

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS: -Mr. Chairman, I appreciate Mrs. ELLIOTT'S concern. I have been doing a rough calculation here. The deficiencies are 150,000 persons which is 75 acres of land and where that is coming from I do not know, but I can assure you that we are looking all the time for sites for resettlement blocks and low-cost housing.

MRS. ELLIOTT: -Mr. Chairman, is it true that land is being sold for private houses?

COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT: -That is certainly true, Mr. Chairman, but in such small lots that it would be quite uneconomical to develop or manage them as resettlement estates.

DR. R. H. S. LEE asked the following question: --

(a) Will the Chairman state the number of votes cast at the North Kowloon Polling Station and also the one at the Royal Defence Headquarters during the last by-election? Does not this bear out the sheer folly of Government in not accepting the advice and recommendation of the Urban Council when these were considered to be unsuitable places to site polling stations by a special committee delegated for this purpose?

(b) Why were polling cards not printed for the voters at the last by-election? Does not the Chairman agree that it played an important contributory factor for the poor response in the turn-out of the last election? Does he know that many voters turned up at the wrong polling station and gave up in disgust in trying to exercise their civic rights?

(c) In view of the poor response of the last election, will the Chairman draw the attention of the relevant Select Committee in going into this question of siting polling stations?