No. 81.
395
No.
27
87.
HONGKONG.
RECLAMATION OF, AND BUILDING AT CAUSEWAY BAY,
Presented to the Legislative Council, by Command of His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government,
on the 13th May, 1887.
PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT,
HONGKONG, 25th April, 1887.
SIR,
The congestion of the population especially in the central portions of the city is now attaining proportions that cannot but cause anxiety to those responsible for the maintenance of the Public Health.
2. The evil becomes aggravated from year to year with the increase of fresli settlers from the mainland who are said to arrive here at the rate of 600 every month or over 7,000 every year.
3. Aware of the dangers of overcrowding, the Government has included in the Public Health Bill certain provisions against this evil.
4. But it will be of little avail legislating against overcrowding unless in anticipation of such legislation, opportunity is afforded to builders of acquiring sites for the erection of new houses for the reception of the overflow of people to be turned out of the central districts under the provisions of the new Act.
5. Quite recently, the Sanitary Board urged attention to the necessity of making opportune provision for the erection of more houses in view of the expressed intention of the Executive Government to reduce the present dangerously over- crowded condition of native tenements.
6. No time should therefore be lost in dealing with this question, and in this conception, I beg to submit in the accompanying plan a project for reclamation and house building in the Causeway Bay District by which 27 acres of ground will be rendered available for the erection of 1,200 Chinese tenements. The pro- ject also provides for the connection of that district with the city by means of a tramway
from Whitfield Station to a terminus at the Blue Buildings, Wántsai.
7. I should state at the outset that this scheme does not contemplate throwing all this land on the market at the same time, but in sections, a fresh section being sent to the hammer as soon as the portions previously sold are in process of being
covered with new houses.
8. The cost of these works and reclamations may be defrayed not from the ordinary Public Revenue of the Colony, but from the premiums realized by the periodical sale of vacant Crown lands. For the purpose of creating a Fund from this source I would not however force or stimulate the sale of Crown lands but merely meet-as it arises-the normal demand for building sites in any portion of the island or Kowloon.
*
9. The accompanying plan of the Causeway Bay District shows, tinted red, the area already reclaimed from the sea, and tinted green a further area which it is now recommended should be reclaimed in order to secure the salubrity of the district.
The Honourable F. STEWART, LL.D.,
*Not printed.
Acting Colonial Secretary,
&C..
&c.,
&c.