# REVIEW OF HOUSING CONDITIONS IN HONG KONG
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populated areas which were used for portable purposes should be closed, that all private lanes and streets should be brought under government control and that back-to-back houses should be demolished as soon as possible.
Under such desperate circumstances, the government was obliged to take strong action and in the same year as the plague struck it passed, on an emergency basis, the Tai Ping Shan Resumption Ordinance. Under this statute the inhabitants from 8.5 acres of land in the worst affected area were evicted, their properties were resumed and demolished, and the area was laid out anew. The various works were completed by 1899 at a total cost of over HK$944,000. Two smaller schemes in the same locality were carried out in 1902 and 1903 at a cost of some HK$271,000; the total area involved in these schemes was about 0.7 acre.
Other measures were introduced in 1894 in the Closed Houses and Insanitary Dwellings Ordinance under which the height of buildings was limited to between 25 ft. and 76 ft. depending on the length and width of the street. The Ordinance also gave powers of inspection to the Sanitary Board to ascertain breaches of the law against overcrowding, the standard of measurement being 30 sq. ft. of floor area and 400 cu. ft. of air space per occupant. Despite the apparent necessity for such measures the unofficial members of Legislative Council pressed for less restrictive clauses.
In 1895 there was a respite from the plague with only 44 reported cases, but in the following year over 1,200 persons were afflicted. Thereafter, the plague became an annual visitation, mainly in the torrid summer months, and persisted until 1907. Altogether, there were some 13,000 victims between 1894 and 1906 giving an average of over 1,000 a year.
The continued concern of the government over the insanitary condition of the Colony led to the appointment of a commission to look further into the matter and a report12 was duly submitted in 1898, the year in which the New Territories were leased from China. After a comprehensive survey of 3,095 houses in two health districts,
11 Minute by the Principal Medical Officer on the Report of the Public Health and Building Ordinance Commission, Appendix A. p. 5 in the Blue Book Reports on Sanitation and Housing 1900-1907, Hong Kong, 1907.
12 Report of the Commission to Inquire into the Existence of Insanitary Properties in the Colony, Hong Kong, 1898.