Page 18 of 242
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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT:-I am the competent authority for resettlement in the New Territories, but the control of squatters is vested in the District Commissioner.
MR. SALES: ---Sir, perhaps you might ask the New Territories District Commissioner for the answer to the following supplementary questions, because it involves the total housing problem in Hong Kong and the Urban Council should, as we are members of the Hong Kong Housing Authority, be given information. What is the total number of squatters in the New Territories?
CHAIRMAN:-This would go to the Housing Authority, if anyone Mr. SALES, not this Council.
MR. SALES: -No, Sir. I have asked you, as Chairman of the Urban Council, to get the information from the New Territories Administration in order that we may study the problem more intelligently. Surely the information should not be denied to us as a body responsible for low rental housing in Hong Kong.
CHAIRMAN:-In the urban areas, Mr. SALES.
MR. SALES: --And also in the New Territories. We have estates in the New Territories.
MRS. ELLIOTT:-Mr. Chairman, I think the figure is 120,000.
MR. SALES: Mr. Chairman, it is not necessary any more to have either the Commissioner for Resettlement on this Council or the District Commissioner, New Territories? Mrs. ELLIOTT will in the future give us all the information that is needed, and I am most obliged to Mrs. ELLIOTT for that. (Laughter).
MRS. ELLIOTT:-It is in the Housing Board report (but I think nobody wants to see a copy).
CHAIRMAN:-That is correct, Mrs. ELLIOTT.
(3) MR. A. de O. SALES asked the following question:-
(a) What measures are taken to prevent new squatting? (b) To what extent has new squatting taken place last year?
THE COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT replied as follows:-
The measures the Resettlement Department takes to prevent new squatting are described in Chapter 3 of our recently published annual report for the year 1969-70. Although this report is available to the public, I am grateful to
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
17
Mr. SALES for this opportunity to draw attention to this aspect of the department's work. The following description is a summary of the one given in the report.
For squatter control purposes, the urban area is divided into three districts (Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and Kwun Tong) each of which is under the charge of a Resettlement Officer and is divided into two sections with an Assistant Resettlement Officer in charge of each. Sections are sub-divided into patrol areas which are the responsibility of Resettlement Assistants and their supporting staff of gangers and labourers. The Resettlement Assistant is required to know his patrol area intimately, no easy task when an area may contain from 1,500 to 2,000 structures and between 6,000 and 15,000 people, and covers anything up to 3,000 acres of hilly ground.
The function of the patrolling Resettlement Assistant is basically to see that his area remains "frozen", that is, that no unauthorized new building takes place. Structures which are presumed to have been erected before August 1954 or which have since been expressly "tolerated" following subsequent surveys, the last of which was in 1964, are specially marked and records are kept of them. Tolerated structures, as the name implies, are allowed to remain undisturbed until they have to be demolished to make way for permanent development, when the occupants are resettled into the estates. When a Resettlement Assistant finds an entirely new building or an unauthorized extension to a tolerated structure, he tries to persuade the owner to demolish it. If the owner fails to do this (as happens more often than not), the building is demolished by the department and the confiscated building materials may subsequently be used to help the poorer squatters in building huts in licensed areas.
During the calendar year ending December 1970, a total of 12,010 new or re-erected structures or extensions to tolerated ones were demolished by the Resettlement Department's Squatter Control staff, and another 3,428 were dismantled by their owners. 423 of these were on the roofs of permanent buildings. It may be of interest that corresponding figures for previous years are not very different. For example in 1969, 11,974 structures or extensions were demolished by Squatter Control staff and another 4,224 were dismantled by their owners and the corresponding figures for 1968 were 11,140 and 4,134 respectively.
Page 18 of 242
Page 18 of 242
16
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT:-I am the competent authority for resettlement in the New Territories, but the control of squatters is vested in the District Commissioner.
MR. SALES: ---Sir, perhaps you might ask the New Territories District Commissioner for the answer to the following supplementary questions, because it involves the total housing problem in Hong Kong and the Urban Council should, as we are members of the Hong Kong Housing Authority, be given information. What is the total number of squatters in the New Territories?
CHAIRMAN:-This would go to the Housing Authority, if anyone Mr. SALES, not this Council.
MR. SALES: -No, Sir. I have asked you, as Chairman of the Urban Council, to get the information from the New Territories Administration in order that we may study the problem more intelligently. Surely the information should not be denied to us as a body responsible for low rental housing in Hong Kong.
CHAIRMAN:-In the urban areas, Mr. SALES.
MR. SALES: --And also in the New Territories. We have estates in the New Territories.
MRS. ELLIOTT:-Mr. Chairman, I think the figure is 120,000.
MR. SALES: Mr. Chairman, it is not necessary any more to have either the Commissioner for Resettlement on this Council or the District Commissioner, New Territories? Mrs. ELLIOTT will in the future give us all the information that is needed, and I am most obliged to Mrs. ELLIOTT for that. (Laughter).
MRS. ELLIOTT:-It is in the Housing Board report (but I think nobody wants to see a copy).
CHAIRMAN:-That is correct, Mrs. ELLIOTT.
(3) MR. A. de O. SALES asked the following question:-
(a) What measures are taken to prevent new squatting? (b) To what extent has new squatting taken place last year?
THE COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT replied as follows:-
The measures the Resettlement Department takes to prevent new squatting are described in Chapter 3 of our recently published annual report for the year 1969-70. Although this report is available to the public, I am grateful to
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
17
Mr. SALES for this opportunity to draw attention to this aspect of the department's work. The following descrip- tion is a summary of the one given in the report.
For squatter control purposes, the urban area is divided into three districts (Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and Kwun Tong) each of which is under the charge of a Resettlement Officer and is divided into two sections with an Assistant Resettlement Officer in charge of each. Sections are sub- divided into patrol areas which are the responsibility of Resettlement Assistants and their supporting staff of gangers and labourers. The Resettlement Assistant is required to know his patrol area intimately, no easy task when an area may contain from 1,500 to 2,000 structures and between 6,000 and 15,000 people, and covers anything up to 3,000 acres of hilly ground.
The function of the patrolling Resettlement Assistant is basically to see that his area remains "frozen", that is, that no unauthorized new building takes place. Structures which are presumed to have been erected before August 1954 or which have since been expressly "tolerated" following subsequent surveys, the last of which was in 1964, are specially marked and records are kept of them. Tolerated structures, as the name implies, are allowed to remain undisturbed until they have to be demolished to make way for permanent development, when the occupants are resettled into the estates. When a Resettlement Assistant finds an entirely new building or an unauthorized extension to a tolerated structure, he tries to persuade the owner to demolish it. If the owner fails to do this (as happens more often than not), the building is demolished by the department and the confiscated building materials may subsequently be used to help the poorer squatters in building huts in licensed areas.
During the calendar year ending December 1970, a total of 12,010 new or re-erected structures or extensions to tolerated ones were demolished by the Resettlement Department's Squatter Control staff, and another 3,428 were dismantled by their owners. 423 of these were on the roofs of permanent buildings. It may be of interest that corresponding figures for previous years are not very different. For example in 1969, 11,974 structures or extensions were demolished by Squatter Control staff and another 4,224 were dismantled by their owners and the corresponding figures for 1968 were 11,140 and 4,134 respectively.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.