REVIEW OF HOUSING CONDITIONS IN HONG KONG
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other parts of the Colony, excluding marine districts, there were a further 48,000 households (200,000 persons) that were also without proper accommodation (Figure 4). Thus, for the Colony as a whole satisfactory accommodation was lacking for 533,000 households containing 2.2 million persons.
In the realisation that stimulus had to be given to the greater participation by private enterprise in the field of housing, the Buildings Ordinance of 1935 was radically changed in 1956 to permit a very much higher intensity of land use. This resulted in a moderate surge of development which reached a peak in 1959 when some 12,000 private domestic units were built (Figure 5); saturation of market demand thereafter caused a decline in building activity until 1961.
The high intensity of development brought about by the relaxation of building volume controls, together with high residential occupancy rates, imposed severe strains on the urban transportation system, created considerable problems in the reprovisioning of utility services and also added to the congestion of areas which were already deficient in open spaces and community facilities. It was consequently found necessary to scale down the permitted intensity of development, and in 1962 new regulations were introduced for this purpose. These regulations became effective in 1966 and provide for a sliding scale for plot ratios and site coverage depending on the height and type of building.
During the "period of grace" between 1962 and 1966 there was an unprecedented wave of private residential development, most of which was concentrated in the old inner suburbs where the already impoverished urban environment became over-saturated with the resultant intensification of the multifarious forms of human activity. Thus, within the space of only 10 years the urban form of Hong Kong underwent a transformation, as a result of which multi-storey buildings of up to 20 storeys and more became the dominant characteristic of the city which before 1956 was typified by four and five storey buildings. The effect of the 1962-1966 building boom was that the housing market became over-saturated, so that by 1966 there were 18,000 vacant domestic units in the private sector. The over-supply of residential accommodation and a bank crisis in 1965 caused a retraction of investment in private housing which lasted until 1970.