ENG-1957 — Page 15

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HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT

engineering feat, hoisted its first passengers to Victoria Gap, 1,305 feet above sea level.

In sharp contrast were the densely crowded quarters of the less well-to-do Chinese. Many of these tenement areas-made up of row after row of four-storey buildings-are still to be seen in central Victoria and Kowloon. Their width as build- ings was limited by the average length of the China fir joist, which is 15 feet. As a result, the common unit of land- holding became a 15-foot strip, about 50 feet deep; and these dimensions still impose themselves upon many of the multi-storey concrete buildings which are replacing the old

tenements.

The space problems of Kowloon were not as acute as those of Victoria. Although it contains nearly a square mile of barren hills, the peninsula is flatter than the island. Its level coastal margins have always offered space for building; and reclamation has provided more. In addition, since its main development took place in the twentieth century, Kowloon was a better planned city from the start. The Public Health and Building Ordinance of 1903 provided minutely for im- proved methods in town building in the Colony, a prime objective being to provide adequate space between buildings for scavenging and ventilation. Its main effect, however, was to limit the height of buildings to five storeys, except in special cases. The provisions of this Ordinance, re-enacted and brought up to date in later years, exerted a strong influence on building development in Hong Kong until 1955.

At the turn of the century the Colony, which had up till then measured 35 square miles, gained about 355 square miles by leasing the 'New Territories' from China for 99 years. The New Territories comprise the northern hinter- land, 20 miles deep, of the Kowloon peninsula, and some 200 islands ranging from rocky, desolate islets to Lantao, which is bigger than Hong Kong Island itself. Yet the teeming populations of Kowloon and Victoria have not

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