ENG-1964 — Page 153

128

LAND AND HOUSING

of the compensation they are likely to have received. This rent advance will be returned to them in the form of a reduced rent over the first ten years of their tenancy.

The revised resettlement policy also gives priority for accommoda- tion to compassionate cases and victims of natural disasters, to people living in areas needed for re-development, tenants of over- crowded rooms in existing resettlement estates and to pavement dwellers. Associated with these changes are the new building pro- grammes and arrangements for those who do not have any priority for accommodation.

The building programmes embrace both resettlement building itself and the programme of Government Low-cost Housing. This is a recently initiated programme of accommodation similar in design to the latest improved resettlement blocks and is administered by the Housing Authority. These programmes are calculated on the basis of units representing space for one adult. The new building programme for resettlement covers the six years to 1970 during which 900,000 should be provided at a cost of $766,000,000. This figure is covered by items already in the public works programme and sites have already been reserved. As an aid to planning a ten- year technical planning target has also been adopted for the provi- sion of 1,900,000 units by 1974 at a cost of $1,691,000,000. Annual reviews will ensure that both the programmes and the planning targets are within our resources, that they are continuing to meet the needs of the Colony and that they are kept six and ten years in advance respectively. The revised policy finally makes new arrangements for homeless people, who do not qualify at the time for resettlement, to erect their huts under licence in more remote areas where they will be free from disturbance.

The New Territories Administration is responsible for the control of squatters in the New Territories, with the exception of the Tsuen Wan District where control has been transferred to the Resettlement Department. The more accessible parts of the New Territories are regularly patrolled and are divided into prohibited and non- prohibited areas. In prohibited areas such as the margins of roads, development areas, and land exposed to flooding, no new domestic huts are allowed. In non-prohibited areas temporary structures may be built with a permit from the District Office. As outside Tsuen Wan there are no resettlement estates in the New Territories,