ENG-1980 — Page 146

HOUSING AND LAND

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Work also began during the year on Butterfly Estate - the largest, single public housing complex planned for the new town. This estate is being built in six phases and, when completed in 1984, will provide 12,160 flats for 62,300 people. Piling work was started on the first phase of Shan King Estate.

Development advanced on three smaller but no less important new towns at Tai Po, Fanling - Sheung Shui - Shek Wu Hui, and Yuen Long. In Tai Po, the first four blocks of Tai Yuen Estate were completed to provide 2,655 flats and layout plans were approved for a second estate comprising 8,070 flats.

At Shek Wu Hui, which is being linked with the adjoining market centres of Fanling and Sheung Shui to form a single community, work continued on the first phase of Shek Wu Hui Estate.

In Yuen Long, construction advanced on the 2,000-flat Shui Pin Wai Estate, while 182 flats were completed at Lung Tin, which is the first public housing estate to be built at Tai O on Lantau Island.

Allocations

The Housing Authority possesses a stock of 420,200 domestic flats, of widely varying sizes, amenities and rent levels. During the year, 29,600 flats were allocated to 134,200 eligible people in the following categories: waiting list applicants; development clearance cases; tenants of early housing estates under redevelopment; victims of fire and natural disasters; compassionate cases recommended by the Social Welfare Department or the Medical and Health Department; occupants of huts and other structures in a dangerous location; former tenants of dangerous buildings; residents affected by the re-use of temporary housing areas; junior civil servants and pensioners; and miscellaneous. A total of 7,260 flats were allocated to families rendered homeless by development clearances, while 13,000 were allo- cated to waiting-list applicants.

Any family of three people or a married couple who are Hong Kong residents may register on the waiting list for public housing. No income or other check is made at the time of application. The waiting list is long: since 1967, 446,300 families have applied, of whom 76,500 have been rehoused with another 213,000 found to be ineligible for public housing. Applications are considered in date order but accommodation is only offered to those found, on investigation, to be living in poor housing conditions and whose family income is within a scale related to family size. This scale was revised during 1980 and now ranges from $2,400 a month for a family of three to a maximum of $3,450 for a family of 10 or more.

Management

Close contact is maintained with tenants through regular visits by estate staff. In addition, regular meetings are held with more than 750 mutual aid committees and other residents' associations established for such purposes as the Keep Hong Kong Clean and Fight Crime campaigns. The door-to-door system of rent collection, which covers all estates, ensures not only an enviable rent collection record (less than 0.3 per cent monthly arrears) but also is an important means of keeping in touch with tenants.

Overcrowding in the older estates remains a major problem and some 30,000 families are still living in an area providing less than 2.2 square metres a person. However, with an increasing number of new estates being completed, all such families are now eligible to apply for transfer to new flats. The flats they vacate, usually being smaller and having a lower rent, are made available for other families which do not yet qualify for permanent