CO129-334 - Governor Nathan - 1906 [5-7] — Page 355

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buildings would be of a haphazard nature tending to make

those areas of mean appearance, inconvenience and ind

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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

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