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LAND AND HOUSING
1,300 to 1,400 flats to accommodate approximately 7,000 people. Two of these blocks were completed before the end of the year.
Since 1950 land has been made available by Government at one-third of its estimated value to encourage non-profit-making housing projects like these, and under this arrangement many large industrial concerns and employers provide flats or dormitory-type accommodation for their employees.
The Government helps its junior local staff by reserving for them 15 per cent of all domestic accommodation in Government Low- Cost Housing estates. Rents and other conditions of tenancy are the same as those for members of the public. In 1952 a scheme was started by which local civil servants on the pensionable establish- ment have been encouraged to form co-operative building societies through which they could receive loans from Government to buy land and build flats. Under this scheme 204 societies with 4,077 members have received loans and, of these, 173 societies with 3,465 members have already completed their buildings. Government has now reviewed the scheme. Further loans will be made to 60 groups who had already applied but thereafter a new scheme will be im- plemented under which the development of sites and construction of multi-storey blocks of flats would be carried out by Government itself, thus ensuring the most economical and practical use of funds available. Funds for the new scheme will become available in April 1966. Ten per cent of these funds will be reserved for building co-operatives organized on existing lines by groups of senior officers. Government also provides accommodation for its overseas staff and for many of its local staff, including police and fire service officers, nurses and resident staff on government installations.
In partnership with the Commonwealth Development Corporation and interested local banks, Government has set up this year a mortgage loan corporation, the Hong Kong Building and Loan Agency Limited, for the purpose of making loans to private in- dividuals for the purchase of their own homes. The loan corporation will be run as a commercial concern without government subsidy, loans will only be made to owner-occupiers of the property financed, and the qualifying limits of borrowers' income will initially be in the range of $900 to $2,000 a month. Loans will be limited to a percentage of the assessed value of the flat purchased with an overall limit of $40,000.