ENG-1961 — Page 219

LAND AND HOUSING

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in the New Territories have to be cleared from areas required for development, the occupants are normally given assistance to re- build their huts on tolerated sites elsewhere. An exception is Tsuen Wan, where 12,692 persons who had to be cleared during 1961 from areas required for development were resettled direct into standard resettlement blocks in the new Tai Wo Hau Estate.

The squatter population is continually augmented by natural increase as well as by infiltration of new families into tolerated huts. If these sections of the population are to be totally rehoused within a reasonably short period of time, the current rate of clearance must be increased. To meet this, it is proposed to step up the construction rate of resettlement blocks to provide an average of 100,000 places a year over the next five years. Currently on the drawing boards of the Public Works Department is a newly- designed resettlement block to replace the H-type. The new design is fundamentally different in plan from the earlier versions in that it is served by a central corridor, thus making it possible to provide a private balcony for each room. In other respects the facilities provided are similar to those in the original blocks.

RENT CONTROLS

In 1947 the Landlord and Tenant Ordinance replaced certain temporary proclamations made shortly after the end of the Pacific War. Its object was to protect tenants of pre-war premises and it limited the increases in rent (30% for domestic premises and 45% for business premises over the standard 1941 rents) which any landlord could charge. Essentially the same controls exist today, although increases of 55% of standard rent for domestic premises and 150% for business premises were allowed in 1954, after an increase for business premises of up to 100% in 1949. It is now possible for a landlord who wishes to redevelop controlled property to get permission to do so through a Tenancy Tribunal on con- ditions which include the payment of compensation to tenants for the loss of their tenancies.

Since 1953 two Tenancy Inquiry Bureaux have been set up within the framework of the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs to help the machinery of the Landlord and Tenant Ordinance work smoothly. The principal statutory duties placed on these bureaux