47
Wednesday, March 29, 1972
"Many people are ready to pay higher rents for better public
housing and our plans for future public housing must also grow imaginatively
to match the rising expectations of the public; we must build for future
generations living more spaciously than people do in our estates today," he said.
The Housing Board, he said, had recently reviewed the building
programme and had recommended that whilst the Census data was being studied,
the programme should be enlarged by 25 per cent to ensure that the existing
approved target, at least, be achieved.
"If this 25 per cent safety margin is approved, the target will
increase from 700,000 to 875,000 adult spaces in the six-year period 1970 to
1976," he added.
Substantial Rise
The recommended incrc se represented a substantial raising of
"our sights" over the previous programme period, he said.
"But even this will not be enough if we are to change the old
estates from the slums we are ashamed of into the kind of urban environment
the people of Hong Kong want an environment fit for their children to
grow up in."
Ir. Lightbody said a new flexibility was appearing in the use of
the terms "resettlement" and "low-cost housing" to meet the obvious logic
of combining in one eligibility list the present aiting List for low-cost
housing and the various categories of persons eligible for accommodation in
resettlement estates by force of circumstances.
/states