ENG-1957 — Page 23

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HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT

old-established tenancies from the zeal of the speculative builder, the Ordinance in effect encouraged full development of the fewer available sites. At the same time it directly stimulated new building. It placed no restriction on the rents of new buildings or on those buildings which had been left completely derelict and were now restored to use by the landlord. Another provision, framed to encourage building, did not at once have the effect intended. This important provision was the power given to the Governor in Council to exclude at discretion any premises or class of premises from the Ordinance. The exclusion of premises from the Landlord and Tenant Ordinance was designed to enable valuable sites, covered by old or inadequate structures, to be cleared for fuller and, it was hoped, more intensive development. Until 1955, however, the exclusion procedure was comparatively rarely used; but in that year an amend- ment of the law sanctioned the payment of compensation to tenants of property which the owner proposed to re- develop. This made it easier for property-owners to assess the cost of development, thus giving further impetus to investment in new buildings.

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Rent control of pre-war buildings still exists in Hong Kong. In 1952 a committee, under the chairmanship of Mr. John McNeill, Q.C., found that the cost of repairing old buildings had risen on'an average to six times the pre- war level and that few landlords could attempt repairs beyond those forced upon them by official action, because the controlled rents were insufficient to allow of adequate maintenance. The committee recommended very considerable increases (by a series of annual instalments) in the permitted rents of both domestic and business premises and the com- plete decontrol of business premises within three years. So great, however, was the opposition to these proposals on the part of the public that a Bill, introduced in 1953 to give effect to the McNeill Committee's recommendations, was amended before its enactment to allow increases above the pre-war