HOUSING AND LAND
113
At public auction, a residential development site of 18,607 square metres in Kowloon Tong realised $210 million, and a site of 4,800 square metres on The Peak, with excellent views and usage restricted to a single family residence, sold for $19 million.
Among the major land transactions in the New Territories during 1980 was the sale in January (for $191 million) of a 1.068-hectare site in Tuen Mun, on which the first part of the new town centre is being built. The site was the first of seven town centre sites which will be disposed of over the next few years.
Also in January, documents were signed for the grant by private treaty of a 15-hectare site for a cement plant at Tap Shek Kok, near Tuen Mun. Investment in the plant is expected to be $1,000 million. American and local interests have joined together to build and operate the plant, the products of which will be for local use.
In August, the Secretary for the New Territories officiated at a ceremony marking the beginning of work on the Discovery Bay resort project on the outlying island of Lantau. This project, covering more than 604 hectares, will cost-$2,500 million and will provide housing and recreation facilities for 20,000 people.
Also in August, the government sold the first wholly commercial site in Tsuen Wan new town for $234 million. The site, measuring 4,600 square metres, will include a bus terminus which will be linked by covered pedestrian walkways to the Mass Transit Railway station and to other buildings in the area.
In September, the government sold by tender to holders of land exchange entitlements, a 2.6-hectare site in Sha Tin for the town centre commercial complex. Another large land parcel that went to land exchange entitlement holders was a site of more than six hectares for high-class residential development at Tai Wo Tsuen, Tsuen Wan.
Land Office
The issue, renewal, variation and termination of Crown leases are dealt with by the Land Office, a division of the Registrar General's Department. Records of transactions relating to land on Hong Kong Island, in Kowloon, New Kowloon (with a few exceptions) and some of the more urban parts of the New Territories are kept in the Land Office. Records relating to transactions affecting other parts of the New Territories and the few exceptional New Kowloon cases are kept at District Land Offices, operated by the New Territories Administration.
The Land Office has responsibility for the registration of all instruments affecting land; the drafting, completion and registration of conditions of sale, grant and exchange of Crown land; the granting of mining leases; the registration of owners' corporations; the apportion- ment of Crown rents and premia; the recovery of outstanding Crown rents; the enforce- ment of lease conditions; and the provision of conveyancing services for the Housing Authority in connection with the sale of flats built under the Home Ownership Scheme. It gives legal and other advice to the government generally on matters relating to land and government land transactions.
After a comprehensive survey of the existing system of registering, keeping and retrieving Land Office records, it was decided that all memorials, Crown leases and conditions of sale, grant and other documents should be kept in microfilm form. To facilitate the im- plementation of the microfilming system, the Land Registration Ordinance was amended by the Land Registration (Amendment) Ordinance 1980, and regulations providing for the microfilming of Land Office records and for other registration procedures of the Land Office were drafted and were under discussion with the Law Society of Hong Kong at the end of the year.