TNAG-0669-FCO40-818-Policy-on-housing-and-resettlement-in-Hong-Kong-1977 — Page 59

布政司署

香港下亞畢道

本署檔號 OUR REF.: (104) in CR 30/2041/73

* Your Ref.:

T. Duffy Esq.,

Hong Kong and General Dept.,

Foreign and Commonwealth

Offices,

London SW 1,

U.K.

Dear Duffy,

GOVERNMent secRETARIAT

BROUTIN

REGI KY No. 51

15 JUN 1977

HKK 360

LOWER ALBERT ROAD

HONG KONG

8th June, 1977.

12/5

Reply

Petition from the Hong Kong and Kowloon Resettlement Roof-top schools Association Ltd.

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Your letter of 29th April addressed to Morris Morgan has been passed to me for attention.

I enclose an information paper that I hope will give you some background information on the Housing Authority's decision to raise the rents of schools and kindergartens and on Government's policy towards these institutions.

I suggest that your reply to the petitioners might make the following points:

(a) the decision to increase rents was made not by

the Housing Department but by the Housing Authority, which is an independent body required by law to ensure that its revenue is sufficient to cover its expenditure. As stated in the Association's letter, schools and kindergartens established in former resettlement estates were previously only required to pay a nominal rent, and they have therefore enjoyed for many years a considerable rent subsidy in comparison with similar private schools outside resettlement estates which have had to pay normal commercial rents. The Housing Authority did not consider that it appropriate for them to continue to subsidize private organizations in this way, and decided in 1976 to require schools and kindergartens to pay a more realistic rent, in exactly the same way as was required of social welfare organizations in 1974. It noted that the proposed increase in rent to 50 cents a square foot would be spread over three stages, over three to four years, and that the ultimate rental fell far short of a full commercial rent even at present day rates.

Was

/(b) ...

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