TNAG-1516-FCO40-2077-Bridges-and-tunnels-in-Hong-Kong-1986 — Page 21

i.e. one year before the tunnel is completed.

So it is improper for

the Housing Department to schedule the clearance as early as May, 1986.

7.

At present, the Housing Department has worked out the following

method to compensate the clearees. For domestic structures, only re-

housing is offered and no removal allowance nor compensation for the

losses incurred as a result of the clearance is provided. As for

commercial structures, compensation is made in accordance with the

"ex-gratia allowance" policy set by the Housing Department in 1983,

which not only fails to cover the shopowners losses but also cannot

even meet the amount of sevrance pay required for the dismissal of

employees necessitated by the clearance exercise. Shop owners will

surely be driven to bankruptcy.

8.

This is contrary to what has been

stated in your reply letter of 10 January 1986 that the government's

planning intentions for Cha Kwo Ling area involve the working of Mass

Transit Railway (Land Resumption and Related Provisions) Ordinance

and Roads (Works, Use and Compensation) Ordinance and that the full

range of statutory and ex-gratia compensation allowance would be payable.

Cha Kwo Ling Village which has been in existence for over a

century was originally under the jurisdiction of the Bao An County,

China. On the 9th of June 1898 when the "Convention for the Extension

of Hong Kong" was signed in Beijing by the Chinese and British governments,

the area to the north of Boundary Street, in which Cha Kwo Ling is

included, was leased to the Eritish government.

•

The status of the

village houses are different from that of the ordinary squarter huts

and should be protected under the abovesaid Convention. Several attempts

have been made by the government to change the existing status of the village houses and introduce development programmes, but all such attempts failed for lack of proper rehousing arrangements. In 1983, the government

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