ENG-1962 — Page 229

LAND AND HOUSING

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Flatted factories. Mention has been made of the small factories which operate in squatter areas. As clearance operations advanced they revealed more and more of these 'squatter factories' and, to permit those being resettled to continue this form of livelihood, it was decided to construct several multi-storey factory blocks. These have industrial working space in units of 198 square feet in the old blocks and 256 square feet in the new, and are allocated to owners of squatter factories under a certain size who cannot afford to re-establish themselves elsewhere. Rents are calculated to provide a return on capital within 21 years at five per cent per annum compound interest. They vary from $75 a month for a ground floor unit to $45 a month for one on a top floor, inclusive of rates. These rents are below market levels and in most areas the accommodation has proved attractive to small manu- facturers. J

Cottage resettlement areas. Fourteen cottage resettlement areas still remain in existence, but the number of occupants varies little from year to year since it is uneconomic, at least in the urban areas, to increase their size. In certain districts the sites are being cleared for other development, and their occupants resettled in multi-storey accommodation. A total of 1,440 structures in three of the larger cottage areas were demolished to provide land for more intensive development or for road widening, and the 12,970 occupants were resettled. Approximately 60 acres of land were freed in this way. In the Chai Wan cottage area the Methodist Church built 165 stone cottages to replace old and dilapidated wooden huts. Several of the remaining cottage areas still contain many small factories, shops and workshops, together with schools, clinics and welfare centres of various types; these are largely provided by voluntary agencies who continue to add generously to such facilities year by year.

Rennie's Mill Village. In 1950 a new community came into existence in Junk Bay on the eastern shores of the Kowloon peninsula when a number of ex-Nationalist soldiers, previously accommodated on Hong Kong Island, were moved to a camp under the supervision of the then Social Welfare Office. With the passage of time many of the original soldiers moved away. Other immigrants and their families took their place and the camp developed into a permanent settlement of some 8,000 inhabitants