C 23.
PALMER & TURNER,
Architects and Surveyors.
604
HONGKONG, September, 19th, 1899.
SURVEY REPORT AND VALUATION OF MARINE LOT
No. 184 AND RECLAMATION TO SAME.
The above Lot is situated on the Old Praya in the, Western District and contains a lease area of some 32.820 square feet the ground is covered by No. 262 and 263 Praya, which are good class well built stone and brick two storied Godowns.
Taking into consideration the reclamation in front of these buildings we value the original Lot at $1.50 per foot say $49,000.00, the Buildings we value at $45,000.00, making a total value of $94,000.00.
The reclamation belonging to this Lot will be some 15,200 square feet, and we value the land when reclaimed at say $2.75 per foot giving the total value of Reclamation at $41,800.00, to this add the value of Original Lot makes the total value of property One Hundred and Thirty-Five Thousand and Eight Hundred. Dollars, $135,800.00.
Hongkong, September 19th, 1899.
C 24.
DENISON, KAM & GIBBS,
(Sd). PALMER & TURNER, F.R.S.B.A,
Surveyors, etc.
Architects, Civil Engineers and Surveyors.
HONGKONG, 14th June, 1905.
M. J. D. STEPHENS, Esq.
Howard's Godowns-Marine Lot No. 184.
SIR--In accordance with your instructions I have made an inspection of the above named property, with a view to reporting to you as to its value prior to the time when its access to the sea was interfered with by the works carried out under the Praya Reclamation Ordinance; which involved the construction of a new sea Wall; and the filling in of the then existing foreshore; and the consequent conversion of what had been Marine Lots into practically speaking Inland Lots.
This work was initiated in 1889 but the actual work of reclamation so far as concerned Section 1, in which district Marine Lot No. 184 is situated was not put in hand until some years later, and it was not until 1899 or thereabouts though there had been I believe interference at an earlier date that the access to the sea was interrupted to such an extent as to render the property in question, and the buildings thereon, in great measure useless for the purposes of godowns for which it had been bought and developed.
Somewhere about this date, as I understand, the Government made the Owners an offer of compensation for the injury that they had received, and almost immediately afterwards this award of $15,000.00 was declined.
It is at this date then, viz., 1899, that I will offer you an opinion as to the value of the property referred to.
+
At that time the lot had a frontage of about 100′ 0′′ upon what was then known as Praya West (now Des Voeux Road West) upon the North, a frontage of about 105′0′′ upon Queen's Road West upon the South, a frontage of about 340′6′′ upon Whitty Street upon the West, and measured about 313'0" upon the East side and contained an area of about 32,481 superficial feet. The Praya at that time was about 50′0′′ wide and the water of a depth that rendered it convenient for cargo boats to come alongside at almost all states of the tide. The lot was developed with two godowns, two-storys high-separated by a lane about 12′ 0′′ wide-and covering an area of about 29,360 superficial feet. Judging from this condition to-day