ENG-1961 — Page 206

168

LAND AND HOUSING

in the built-up areas of the Colony. One hundred and thirty five sheets in Hong Kong Island and 83 in Kowloon and New Kowloon are now available in this series.

The New Territories remain largely rural, but the pressure of a rising population and an expanding economy have resulted in a striking growth of industry and housing. To meet this activity and to pinpoint individual land holdings a wide coverage of up-to-date survey sheets to a large scale is of first importance. To date, 281 sheets have been completed to a scale of 100 feet to an inch.

These surveys form the basis for further scale plans which are required for planning, land records, and other purposes and which are redrawn from photographic reductions.

In addition to supplying survey sheets of the Colony showing the plan position of buildings, the Survey Office is also the respon- sible authority for establishing differences of level.

The first recorded levelling in the Colony was carried out by HM Surveying Vessel Rifleman in 1866 when a copper bolt was driven into the wall of a store house in the Royal Naval Dockyard and its height determined as 17.833 feet above principal datum. All levelling in the Colony is based on this principal datum_which is approximately 3.9 feet below mean sea level.

Town Planning. Town planning in Hong Kong includes the planned development of new industrial townships, the gradual redevelopment of out-of-date urban localities and the gradual ex- pansion of the urban areas. The basic aim of the planning, there- fore, is to provide a framework within which public and private development may progress together; to ensure that adequate provi- sion is made for open spaces, public buildings, communications and other necessary services; and to control the use and to stimulate the development of land.

Development densities in the present urban centres are as high as anywhere in the world and, with a possible increase in popula- tion from 3 to 4 million in the next 10 years, considerable new expansion must take place if these densities are not to rise even higher.

Planning activities are co-ordinated in the Planning Division of the Crown Lands and Survey Office of the Public Works Depart- ment and are concerned mainly with the preparation of outline