ENG-1969 — Page 196

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LAND AND HOUSING

permits. To enable the operators of these factories to continue earning a livelihood when these areas are cleared for permanent development, multi-storey resettlement factory blocks have been built. Because of the need to use a simple design in order to keep construction costs, and therefore rents, as low as possible, a number of trades cannot be accommodated in the multi-storey factory blocks and consequently some factories can be resettled only if the owners are willing to change their trades.

The latest factory blocks are seven storeys high and have units of 256 square feet. At the end of the year there were 22 resettlement flatted factory blocks, containing a total of 1,860,000 square feet of net working space, mostly situated in or near existing resettle- ment estates. Rents are calculated to cover administration costs and a return on capital within 21 years at five per cent interest. In the latest factories these rents vary from 55 cents a square foot a month for a ground floor unit to 25 cents for one on the top floor, all rents being inclusive of rates.

There still remain 15 cottage resettlement areas in various parts of the urban area and the New Territories. The population of these areas has diminished as clearance for development continues and the occupants are resettled in multi-storey estates. However, cottage areas still house 57,568 people. Several of these areas contain many small factories, shops and workshops, together with schools, clinics and welfare centres of various types largely established by voluntary agencies which generously continue to maintain these facilities.

SQUATTER CONTROL AND CLEARANCE

All squatting on Crown land is by definition unlawful, but illegal structures are 'tolerated' if they were included in squatter surveys made from time to time, the latest being in 1964. When the land on which they stand is needed for development they are then cleared and their occupants resettled into the estates. 'Untolerated' structures are demolished, as are extensions to tolerated huts. People who are genuinely homeless may apply for a site in one of the Resettlement Department's licensed areas, on which they can build a hut on payment of a small licence fee.

The squatter population continues to decrease gradually and at the end of 1969 was estimated to be about 364,209 as compared