ENCLOSURE 1
NEW TERRITORIES URBAN LAND EXCHANGE POLICY
The Block Crown Lease
Leased Crown land in the New Territories is mostly
held through Block Crown Leases. Each Block Crown Lease
consists of a survey plan of land holdings within a
demarcation district on which each lot is defined and
numbered, a record containing the name of the land-owner
of each lot shown on the survey plan, its area and use and
the Crown rent payable, and a document signed by the then
Governor setting out the terms of the lease on which the
land was granted. The constitutional authority for the
grant of the leases was the New Territories Ordinance
(Chapter 97).
2.
The Crown's control over the use of land leased
under a Block Crown Lease derives principally from a
covenant that the lessee shall not convert any land
expressed to be demised as agricultural or garden ground
for building without the licence of the Crown. It is also
this clause which determines its basic value, although the
commercial land market also takes account of the possibility
of land being accepted by Government for a building
exchange and of permission being given for the construction
of buildings.
/The
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