ENG-1959 — Page 219

LAND AND HOUSING

179

Concurrently with planning and building, work has continued on the selection of tenants for the Authority's flats, on the basis of a points scheme, in which the most important factor is the applicant's housing need, although other factors, such as tuber- culosis in the family, are also taken into account. The general register for applications was closed at the end of July and no further applications are being considered at the present time for the North Point and Sai Wan Tsuen Estates, where long waiting lists already exist. With the closing of the register applications for So Uk Estate were invited, and for this estate it was decided to dispense with the previous residential qualification which restricted applications to persons who had lived in the Colony continuously since July 1948. A points system, however, has been devised to give a certain degree of priority to persons who have spent the larger part of their lives in Hong Kong. The family income ceiling has also been extended for So Uk from $900 to $1,200 p.m. When the general register was closed there were 11,735 outstanding applications out of which number 6,706 applicants expressed an interest in So Uk. Since invitations were announced for So Uk 15,401 application forms have been issued and 7,598 returned. A considerable volume of work is involved in visiting applicants in their homes in order to check the particulars given and collect further information, and by the end of the year the total number of these visits had reached 13,013, in addition to 17,085 personal interviews given at the Head Office on points of difficulty.

TROL

RENT CONTROLS

The 1947 Landlord and Tenant Ordinance replaced certain temporary proclamations made shortly after the end of the war. It was designed to protect tenants in controlled pre-war premises, and determined the maximum increases in rent (30% for domestic premises and 45% for business premises over the standard 1941 rents) which any landlord could charge in these controlled premises. Essentially the same controls exist today, although increases of 55% of standard rent for domestic premises and 150% for business premises were permitted in 1954, the latter having already been raised to 100% in 1949. It is now possible for a landlord wishing to redevelop controlled property to obtain permission to do so