ENG-1963 — Page 61

REVIEW

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(Amendment) Regulations, 1962 take full effect in 1966, they are possible. Intensity of development in certain districts has been controlled over the years by means of lease conditions stipulating the height to which buildings may be erected or the form which building shall take. This is particularly the case in areas such as the central spine of the Kowloon peninsula and the rural parts of Hong Kong Island where buildings of two or three storeys only were permitted. In recent years much higher buildings have been allowed, subject to certain limitations on the proportion of the lot which may be built upon. The 1962 Building Regulations follow the same principle and lay down scales of maximum percentage coverage and maximum plot ratio (the ratio of the gross floor area to the area of the lot) for three classes of site. These regula- tions are designed, in the main, to reduce building volumes and so improve light and air and lessen the increase in congestion in the urban areas. In addition to the Buildings Ordinance, the height to which a building may be erected is also limited by the Hong Kong Airport (Control of Obstructions) Order, 1957 and this has an important and increasing effect on development, mainly in the Kowloon peninsula.

In addition to all these factors, the traditional Chinese belief in geomantic influences has played a part in the history of develop- ment in Hong Kong. The Chinese term fung shui, meaning literally wind and water, may be described as an interpretation of the basic elements of a place for purposes of the auspicious siting of a building, grave, road etc. In its positive form, the theory is that beneficent influences in, for instance, a hill, tree or rock will protect and lend prosperity to a building sited in accordance with accepted practice. In its negative form, the feeling is that disturbance of the ground in certain places will upset the beneficent influences and result in calamity for the desecrators and nearby residents. To-day, in the crowded urban areas of the Colony, it is possibly true to say that fung shui plays little or no part in the main siting of commercial buildings, although it may have some in- fluence amongst traditionalists in the internal arrangements of buildings. But, in many parts of the New Territories and rural areas of Hong Kong and Kowloon, the belief persists and, where possible, is respected by the Government. The ever increasing demand for land however has tended to lead to a conflict of