1
25
5.5 The Working Group accordingly considered whether any
ex-gratia element should be payable. It reasoned that the terms
for compensation and exchange were not as favourable as those
applicable to agricultural land. In particular, if an
owner of building land decided to forego his right to a
land exchange, he received no compensation in respect of
the rights foregone. The Committee accordingly concluded
that it would be equitable to compensate for the value of
the exchange rights foregone in the same way as they are
compensated in the case of agricultural land, but suitably
adjusted to take into account the difference in exchange
ratios.
5.6
The value of agricultural land is about $5 per
square foot within urban development areas in the New
Territories. The proposed initial new rate of compensa-
tion is $27 per square foot. The "ex-gratia" compensation
is the difference between these two and is $22 per square
foot. As agricultural land is exchanged at the ratio of
5:2 and building land is exchanged at the ratio of 1:1
for building land, the working Group felt that for the
purposes of "ex-gratia" compensation 1 square foot of
building land could be equated to 2.5 square feet of
agricultural land. The initial rate of "ex-gratia"
compensation for building land would therefore be #55
/per