Page 48 - ENGLISH_FullText

Appendix I: A Note

on the Resettlement

Programme

In most countries, governments are not involved in providing hous-
ing, and certainly not on the scale of Hong Kong, where some 50% of the
population live in public housing units. This is a post-war phenomenon: until
1954, the Hong Kong government was not involved in building homes. The
decision to adopt such an approach was the product of a set of unique cir-
cumstances and misguided government policy in the immediate post-war
years.

First, housing supply could not be easily increased at that time.
Private developers faced formidable constraints in redeveloping the urban
housing stock. Rent control imposed on pre-war housing in 1947 made it dif-
ficult to evict tenants for redevelopment.

Second, the massive influx of immigrants increased the population
from 600,000 in 1945 to 2.3 million in 1951 and led to an explosive growth in
demand for housing. No society in peacetime had experienced such a phe-
nomenon. It was a unique situation. Land available for development was
invaded by about 300,000 squatters seeking alternative housing from the
old private tenement apartments.

Third, the government was initially reluctant to facilitate housing
development despite intensive lobbying from private business interests.
There was general hostility towards private developers, many of whom
took part in building squatter housing.

The old tenement blocks were packed with massive numbers of
immigrants and returning residents. Most became subtenants. A small pro-
portion of the new arrivals spilled over into squatter areas on the fringes of
the urban areas by occupying land illegally. The government soon realised
that development had become impossible because rent control had made
it difficult to redevelop land within the urban areas, and land on the perime-
ter was illegally occupied by squatters. The only politically feasible to secure
land for development was to resettle squatters into public sector housing
units and reclaim the land they had occupied.

The Shek Kip Mei Christmas fire in 1954 provided an ideal opportuni-
ty for the government to introduce Resettlement Estates as a solution for
dislocated households and to clear squatter areas.

48