ENG-1961 — Page 218

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LAND AND HOUSING

1961 took place at Kai Tak New Village, which was demolished to allow an extension to a nearby resettlement estate. The clear- ance entailed the resettlement of over 13,000 persons from 14 acres of land. Virtually all had been living in single-storey wooden shacks.

For squatters still awaiting resettlement there were the usual hazards of rain-storm and fire. Typhoon 'Olga', which missed the Colony by some 30 miles, did rather less damage than was ex- pected, and the usual summer rains caused only a few small landslides. Twenty five fires occurred in urban squatter areas during the year, the largest being in January at Valley Road, Kowloon, when 10,456 squatters were made homeless overnight. The total number made homeless by all natural disasters during 1961 was 22,044 and, in accordance with current policy, they were permitted to rebuild their huts either on the old sites or on new ones as close as possible to them. To resettle these persons immediately would have seriously disrupted the general pro- gramme of clearance and development.

Each year in October a fresh survey of urban squatter areas is carried out. Huts built before 1954 (or 1956 in the case of rooftops) continue to be tolerated. New huts are forbidden. No control is kept at present over the number of occupants of tolerated huts and it is the purpose of the survey to determine how many occupants there are. The 1961 return indicated a total of 520,547 squatters in the urban areas surveyed, including 76,826 on roof- tops. Squatters in unsurveyed areas are thought to number some 70,000. New unauthorized huts and unauthorized extensions to existing huts are demolished; during 1961, 10,845 such demolitions took place.

The New Territories Administration is responsible for the con- trol of squatters in the New Territories, with the exception of the Tsuen Wan district where control was transferred to the Resettle- ment Department on 1st July 1961. The more accessible parts of the New Territories are regularly patrolled and are divided into prohibited and non-prohibited areas. In the former, such as the margins of roads, layout and development areas, and land exposed to flooding, it is necessary to prevent more squatters from building huts. In the latter, temporary structures may be built with a permit from the District Officer. When existing structures