·4- Appendix C.
CHINESE TENEMENT HOUSES.
It is realised that the care of tuberculous persons is only one item in the necessary improvement proposed in the Colony. The general standard of living must be raised and improvements made in housing conditions.
Housing and over-crowding are the most potent factors involved in the spread of the disease, and until reasonable good housing conditions are available, treatment and care of tuberculosis however, scientific or otherwise, will be merely tackling the surface of the problem.
In Hong Kong, the worst congestion of overcrowding is in the Chinese tenement houses. I have seen old type tenements with practically no open space at the rear, nor lavatory conven- iences, packed up with bunks three tiers high.
The slums and old type tenements have to be cleared in, say, 15 to 20 years, for the rebuilding of modern type houses with the required open space and conveniences, and legislation made to attain this end. I see no reasonable or serious objection to this Bill becoming law, as sufficient time will be given to property owners to effect this rebuilding plan.
(2)
Size of lot.
I produce here plan A, showing the new type of Chinese tonement house erected before the war, the average lot dimension of each house is about 15' x 60' in newly developed areas. Tho depth of old tenements varies between 80 to 100 feet. In the old tenements or even the newly erected tenements, a large amount of floor space is taken up by passage ways unavoidable in long narrow plans.
For the same, lot area, a 22' x 45' lot would give better planning and use with direct air and light to each room. It is obvious that plans B and C are decided improvements over A, depth of lots in Chinese tenement areas should be shortened in future town planning sohemes with a wider street frontage to each house.
(ii)
Cooklofts or mezzanine floors.
Cooklofts or mezzanine floors in tenements are officially for storage but normally used as sleeping quarters. The height of ground floor is usually 16' 0" and there is only a 61
O" headroom to the oockloft or mezzanine floor. It is generally agreed that oooklofts are undesirable by the Authorities. Amendments could be made to the Building Ordinances not to allow construction of oocklofts exoept to non-domestic buildings.
(iii)
Water closets.
Legislation should be made that buildings be provided with W.Cs. within say 5 years. W.Cs. are not permitted by the Authorities in the Mongkok and Ho Mun Tin areas as the sewers discharge into the Typhoon Shelter. A properly designed septic tank installed in the yard if there is enough open space would solve this problem; or else this has to be held in abeyance until new sewers are laid. The one pipe sewage system with septic tank arrangement to each house in Canton is not a nuisance to health so far.
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