ENG-1957 — Page 227

LAND AND HOUSING

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housing problem that the Government in February 1956 appointed a Special Committee, under the chairmanship of the Director of Urban Services, to investigate and report on the Colony's housing situation, including resettlement of squatters, in relation both to the needs of the population, now and in the foreseeable future, and to the resources likely to be available for the purpose. The Committee was to make specific recommendations as to the measures, both direct and indirect, which Government might take to ensure that those needs are met so far as is practicable.

In its first interim report, which was accepted by the Government in July 1956, the Committee recommended that the resettlement programme should be expedited, and that a Development Division of the Public Works Department should be set up in order to plan and carry out large-scale engineering works designed to open up new land for housing and industry. The second recommendation, the acceptance of which represented a new departure in the Government's land development policy, reflected the committee's belief that the most important and urgent task was to relieve that basic land shortage and that such a programme, though expensive, would bring in, as it proceeded, substantial revenue from land sales as well as the benefits for which it was primarily designed. The action taken to implement this recommenda- tion of the Committee is described earlier in this Chapter.

A second interim report was submitted in February 1957 in which the main recommendations were that a Commis- sioner for Housing should be appointed who should be responsible for surveying all the different factors affecting the housing situation and for co-ordinating action upon them, and that a housing survey should be held as soon as possible. Both recommendations were accepted, and a Com- missioner for Housing was appointed in March 1957, who became Chairman of the Special Committee on Housing and principal executive officer of the Housing Authority in place of the Director of Urban Services. The latter still remains