-30 bari
buildings would be of a haphazard nature tending to make
those areas of mean appearance, inconvenience and ind
351
tary.
4.
A
To obviate such results as soon as development is anticipated in any district a reclamation scheme is drawn up for that district and its general line of frontage and general level and the main roads required in connection with it are laid down on plan. It is also roughly decided whence the material for the reclamation should be obtained
it with a view of improving the laying out of the land behind.
It is not however the policy of the Govern- ment to undertake reclamation itself in anticipation of the land reclaimed being in demand as such action would from the nature of the case be a speculation which might turn out to be an unsound one and in any event would require
a heavy outlay which the Colony could not as a rule afford. The Government waits for applications from private persons or commercial companies to purchase and reclaim areas in
the district. Then an area of the required superficial
extent with a frontage on the goneral line that has been laid down is settled on with the intending purchaser and
the lot is put up to auction under conditions of sale which in addition te a specified minimum premium per square foot and annual Crow Rent per acre provide for the land
being reclaimed within a certain time to such levels and
with such protective works as the Director of Public Works
may approve, for a specified sur being spent on buildings
to be erected on it within a further period, for certain
public roads and drainage works being carried out wholly
or partially at the purchaser's expense, and for the
material for the reclamation being obtained from places to
be approved by the Director of Public Works, which places
are of curse selected by him with a view to the laying out
of the land behind the reclamation.
5.
An example of a reclamation now being onthese
carried out onthese conditions is the extension of Kowloon
Karin