HOUSING
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A total of 2 300 people who became homeless as a result of fires and landslips were provided with either permanent or temporary accommodation.
Kowloon Walled City Clearance
Since the government announced its decision on January 14, 1987, to clear the Walled City, the work has progressed to its fourth and final phase. At the end of 1990, 22 930 residents had been rehoused and operators of 484 commercial undertakings accepted compensation. Total compensation paid to date in $1.9 billion.
The Kowloon Walled City covers 2.7 hectares and encompasses some 30 000 people and 870 commercial undertakings. The clearance is being undertaken in four phases by the Special Duties Office and is expected to be completed in mid-1992.
After clearance, the site will be developed by the Urban Council into a public park with related community facilities.
Private Buildings Management
Private housing provides homes for about half the population. Most of the residential buildings are high-rise blocks in multiple ownership. Many flats are not owner-occupied. The nature of the ownership of these buildings, combined with various other factors, has resulted in a situation over the years where the management of some private properties has deteriorated.
The management of private buildings is the responsibility of the property owners them- selves. The government, however, realises the importance of proper management and the consequences of consistent neglect. It has, therefore, been taking steps to provide a better legal and administrative framework to enable the flat owners to manage their properties more effectively.
Work is in hand to extensively amend the Multi-storey Buildings (Owners Incorpora- tion) Ordinance to achieve two objectives. One is to make it easier for the co-owners of a building to form an owners' corporation. Such a corporation acts in the interests of individual owners regarding their rights, power, duties and liabilities in relation to the common parts or areas of a building. Although the formation of an owners' corporation does not guarantee good management of a building, experience shows that management standards in buildings which have owners' corporations have generally been better than those in buildings with no comparable management bodies.
The other objective is to provide a statutory code of fair Deed of Mutual Covenant (DMC) clauses. The code will seek to achieve a better balance of interests between the developers and flat owners. It will be provided that to the extent that existing DMC provisions contravene the code they are to be superseded, and that to the extent that they omit obligations spelt out in the code, they are to be supplemented accordingly.
To tackle the problems at the grass-roots level as well as to provide front-line assistance and advice, the City and New Territories Administration has set up Building Management Co-ordination Teams in 10 districts. Their main duties are to help flat owners improve problematic buildings and to offer advice to owners' corporations, mutual aid committees and other building management bodies. Apart from liaising with relevant departments to orchestrate measures to improve target buildings, these teams of professional housing managers and officers also work towards increasing public awareness in building manage- ment matters through various promotional and publicity activities.