ENG-1967 — Page 188

LAND AND HOUSING

137

The government helps its junior local staff by reserving for them 15 per cent of all domestic accommodation in government low- cost housing estates. Rents and other conditions of tenancy are the same as those for other members of the public. In 1952 a scheme was started to encourage local civil servants, on the pensionable establishment, to form co-operative building societies through which they could receive loans from the government to buy land and build flats. Under this scheme 216 societies with 4,417 members have received loans. Of these, 202 societies with 3,981 members have completed their buildings. A new scheme has been introduced by which the development of sites and the construction of multi- storey blocks of flats is being carried out by the government itself. This ensures the most economical and practical use of funds. Two sites are at present under development. Ten per cent of the funds for the revised scheme will be reserved for building co- operatives organized on existing lines by groups of senior officers. The government also provides accommodation for its overseas staff and for many of its local staff, including police and fire service officers, nurses and resident staff on government installations.

The Housing Board, an advisory body appointed in 1965, sub- mitted its second and third reports to government in 1967. The board, under the chairmanship of an unofficial member of the Legislative Council, has a membership of four other unofficial members with housing or sociological experience and six official members concerned with housing matters. The board, which has a three-year term of office, is required to keep under review, and to report annually, progress in all types of housing construction; to assess present and future housing needs, not excluding ancillary so- cial and employment facilities and the balance between types of hous- ing; and to advise on co-ordination in executing housing policies.

In 1966 a Working Party reported to the Legislative Council on the problems involved in slum clearance in the urban areas of the Colony. In October 1967 the government decided to draft legislation and to proceed with a planning and engineering feasibility study of a possible pilot scheme.

RENT CONTROL

Rent control, instituted by proclamation immediately after the war, was embodied in the Landlord and Tenant Ordinance enacted