CO129-627-3 Housing project- contains drawings 1-2-1951 - 31-10-1951 — Page 27

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4. The plans allow for one living room, a kitchen, w.c. and small balcony in each flat. This is considered to be the minimum standard of accommodation desirable on health and social grounds and is preferred to a cheaper form of barrack accommodation with communal kitchen, bathrooms and w.c.'s on each floor, The plan is designed to allow for the maximum through ventilation and is sufficiently strong to withstand typhoon conditions without being extravagant. Sketch plans of the flats and of the layout are available in the Colonial Office. The design of the flats has been made by the Acting Chief Architect, Hong Kong Government, assisted by advice from a Committee on which are representatives of the Public Works Department, Medical and Health Services, Labour and Social Welfare Departments, as well as a number of unofficial ladies and gentlemen who include among their number two leading Chinese property owners and Mr. S.E. Faber, a Consulting Engineer in private practice. The total cost of the group of 190 flats is estimated at $1,132,968, including $120,000 for site formation' and 6% of the building costs only for architects' fees. The corresponding figure for the group of 180 flats is $1,076,500 including $96,000 for site formation and the same scale of architects'

These figures do not include the value of the land which is $293,700 and $207,080 in each case and which it is proposed should be recovered over the duration of the lease in annual instalments with interest.

fees.

5. In order to make a start with this scheme at the earliest possible date, it is proposed that the Public Works Department should undertake the site formation, construction of access roads, and installation of water and drainage, and that the sites, when formed, should be handed over to

A memorandum the Hong Kong Housing Society to supervise construction. setting out the aims and objects of this Society is attached. If these proposals are approved, the Society will be required to become incorporated and, on formation of an Improvement Trust, to merge its functions into

The loan from Government those of the Trust and make over the flats to it. required to meet construction costs will be made in the first instance to the Hong Kong Housing Society, but the Society's assets and liabilities will in due course be taken over by the Improvement Trust referred to above by whom repayment of the loan will be completed.

6. Bearing in mind the type of person for whom the flats to be erected under this scheme are intended, it is important that the rents to be charged for the finished flats shall be kept as low as possible. If at the same time the rents of these and other similar flats to be constructed in the future are to be kept at an economic level (i.e. meeting over a specified period of years all charges on the properties) it is essential, so the Governor has stated in his despatch No. 14 of 10th February, 1951, that site formation and development should not be a charge on the properties. It is also important that the rents for different blocks of similar accommodation should be uniform: this would not be possible if site formation and development were to form a charge on the properties without the need for one group of flats carrying part of the over-heads of another, since such charges vary considerably. Although in the present scheme the cost of site formation is relatively low i.e., $216,000 (£13,500) in all, it is not expected that these charges will constitute such a small proportion of the capital outlay in future owing to the extreme shortage of building sites which are inexpensive to develop in localities where housing of this type is most needed.

7. For these reasons the Governor has proposed that by meeting the initial cost of site formation Colonial Development and Welfare money can most conveniently contribute towards setting in motion much larger developments in the field of housing. With Colonial Development and Welfare money so used site formation would not form a charge on the properties and as a result it would be possible to let them at an economic rent. If site formation had to form a charge on the properties

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