ENG-1959 — Page 222

182

HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT

Estate and another at Wong Tai Sin Estate were built entirely as self-contained flats in order to rehouse families who were living in accommodation of a similar standard at the time of clearance. In 1959 a similar block of self-contained flats was built at Jordan Valley. Each of these flats has its own bathroom, kitchen and small private balcony. The rent, including rates and water charges, is $45 a month for a flat of 240 square feet and $65 a month for a flat of 360 square feet.

During the year 21 multi-storey domestic resettlement blocks were built making a total of 103 blocks completed since the department was established in 1954. A memorial tablet at Block L, Wong Tai Sin Estate, commemorating the completion of the hundredth block, was unveiled by His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government on 26th November 1959. At the end of the year there were nine multi-storey estates. Of these only two had reached their final stage of development and addi- tional blocks were under construction or planned in the remainder. In addition sites were being formed for two further estates at Tung Tau, near Kowloon City, and at Tai Wo Hau, near Tsuen Wan, and plans had been approved in principle for another five

estates.

Most squatter areas that have to be cleared contain not only domestic squatters but also workshops and small factories. Some of these can be resettled in ground floor rooms of resettlement estates, but these rooms are unsuitable for the larger concerns and those using power-driven, machinery. To meet this need an experimental resettlement factory was built at Cheung Sha Wan in 1957; it is a five-storey building with 94,000 square feet of floor space, and it is of the same basic design as the standard domestic resettlement block. The rents have been calculated to cover all recurrent costs and to provide for the recovery of the capital cost in twenty one years, with interest at 5%. Rents vary from floor to floor, the average being $55 a month, including rates, for the standard unit of 200 square feet. Similar factories, with minor modifications, have now been built at Chai Wan and Jordan Valley, and site formation is in progress for a second factory at Cheung Sha Wan.

The development of the fourteen cottage areas has not been on the same scale. These areas are essentially temporary in nature