(C.S.O. No. 1559 of 1883.)
Enclosure.
REPORT.
188
With reference to the verbal and written reports of the Medical Staff on the prevalence of Fever at Causeway Bay, and to the complaints which have been made of the noxious exhalations from the tidal foreshore or marsh lying to the south of the causeway, I have the honour to report that I have caused a survey to be made of the locality and now submit the accompanying tracing of the same, showing tinted green, the area, (twenty-six acres) which it is proposed to reclaim in order to convert the swamp into healthy dry land.
2. There can be no doubt as to the desirability of the reclamation on sanitary grounds and the work seems equally desirable as a means of obtaining a large tract of building land for warehouses and factories. There has been a considerable demand of late for sites for godowns and industrial establishments of one kind and another to the East of the town, and these have now taken up a great portion of the vacant land at Bowrington. Looking to the overcrowded condition of the City it would have been better to have reserved the Bowrington sites for private dwelling houses and to have sent intending builders of warehouses and factories to some suburb like Causeway Bay.
This, however, may still be done in respect of future applicants (of whom I have no doubt there will still be many) if the contemplated reclamation is carried out, and what remains available of Bowrington may yet be devoted to dwelling houses. At current rates land at Causeway Bay may be valued at $4,000 per acre. Deducting five acres for roads and cross streets the remaining 21 acres reclaimed, may be fairly estimated as representing a value of $84,000.
3. The reclamation should be carried up to a height of 3 feet above the level of high-water spring tides. A higher formation level would be expensive and inconvenient in complicating the drainage of the private lands at the back. The quantity of earth to be filled in is 300,000 cubic yards. Owing to the close proximity of the material the work may be done for 9 cents per cubic yard making the cost of the earth-works $27,000.
4. In the original project of a break-water and harbour of refuge for boats at Causeway Bay approved by Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH in 1878, the reclamation of the tidal foreshore to the South of the Causeway was not included. Owing to the expense, this portion of the scheme was left to some future date, and in the plan which was forwarded to the Secretary of State the swamp to the South of the Causeway was merely shown intersected by three proposed channels or dykes, which were to be dredged out of the mud and kept open, to enable boats to haul up on the Shaukiwán Road out of the reach of typhoon seas.
5. The present intention to reclaim however is an improvement on the original proposition as it will enable the boats to haul up on to the new embankment, along the whole extent of the Causeway without having to go through the marsh as formerly contemplated.