ENG-1978 — Page 138

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HOUSING AND LAND

default, the terms for mortgage loans provide for a minimum down payment of 10 per cent of the purchase price, a maximum repayment period of 15 years, and interest rates which will be kept within the range of 74 to nine per cent per annum.

Approximately 27,800 applications were received from eligible families with house- hold incomes of less than $3,500 per month, together with another 8,000 from the authority's tenants. A ballot was held in May to decide the priority for allocation of the 8,300 flats in the first scheme and they were allocated equally between these two groups.

The sale conditions include the prohibition of resale within the first five years, and management by Housing Authority staff.

Planning is in progress for the second phase of the scheme covering 4,400 flats on six sites, to be completed in 1980-1. In addition, private developers have been invited to construct some 3,100 flats on three sites to similar specifications, which will be allocated at the same time.

Urban Housing and Redevelopment

Private development and some 50 public housing estates occupy most of the develop- able land on Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, where population densities are among the highest in the world. However, every effort is being made to extract the maximum development potential from the remaining sites, many of which are occupied by squatter huts and resettlement cottages built in the 1950s. It is anticipated that some 60,000 public sector rental flats plus some 20,000 flats for home ownership will be built in the urban areas up to 1984.

During the year, 1,342 flats were taken over from the Public Works Department in the second phase of Yue Wan Estate in Chai Wan. This area already contains some 20,000 Housing Authority flats of varying ages, and redevelopment of the old Mark I and II blocks, built in 1959–63, is proceeding. Contracts were let for a new estate, Hing Man, in three 38-storey tower blocks.

In Aberdeen, the Housing Authority completed a two-block extension of 1,434 flats to its Wah Fu Estate, bringing the population to 64,800 on this popular sea-front site, which now contains two comprehensive shopping centres. Construction continued on the first estate of 3,800 flats on Ap Lei Chau, which will be linked to Aberdeen by a bridge.

In east Kowloon, a large number of flats, 8,927, were completed in four new estates. Fu Shan, a pleasant self-contained estate, was initially not the most popular owing to its location near a cemetery, but its 1,569 flats were nevertheless rapidly filled. The 2,193 flats at Choi Wan, together with a market and shopping centre, are the first phase of a large scheme which eventually will contain 8,860 flats and greatly expanded commercial and community areas.

Occupation of the first phase of Shun Lee Estate, with 2,000 flats in three twin- towers and a progressive multi-storey podium commercial centre, began in the second half of the year. With the 3,000 flats in two Public Works Department 30-storey cruciform blocks in neighbouring Shun On Estate, these developments comprise the first phase of what ultimately will be a self-contained township housing more than 60,000 people, in the foothills east of Kowloon.