TNAG-0735-FCO40-939-Policy-objective-for-the-developing-of-Hong-Kong-in-the-1980-1978 — Page 208

HOUSING

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80 Then next there is housing. We must ensure that

there is self-contained housing in a reasonable environment

for all. The current programme was started between five

and six years ago. All the laborious work of site

acquisition, preparation, design and construction, is at last reaching fruition, and completions will rise from 18,000

flats this year to 45,000 next year and will bema in ta ined between the 40 and 45,000 levels until 1985. That is

to say housing each year for about a quarter of a million

people. Construction is now proceeding on no less than

57 projects with a contract value of over $2,200 million.

These figures include the flats for purchase under the

Home Ownership Scheme at present planned to average about 6,000 a year as from next year when 8,500 will be

completed. In view of the popularity of the scheme,

we must be alive to the possibility of varying the

balance between the programmes for renting and sale

in the light of public demand, and the design of

new estates provides for this degree of flexibility.

8

Our approach to the level of public housing

production towards which we have been working for

so long, has coincided with a spurt in the construction

of flats by private developers, many for the middle