ENG-1992 — Page 204

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HOUSING

A total of 198 housing blocks containing 102 540 flats were being built during the year. The waiting list for public rental housing is being steadily reduced, and, in order to meet increasing public demand, construction work in the coming years will be geared to producing a greater proportion of flats for sale under the Home Ownership Schemes and more fully self-contained flats for smaller or one person households.

The first of the new Harmony range blocks was completed during the year, and 14 more will be completed in 1993.

Quality assurance

The emphasis being placed on quality assurance has received the support of the construction industry, and it is expected that by early 1993 about half of the major companies employed by the authority will be certified as firms capable of complying with the international quality standard ISO: 9000.

Meanwhile, the Housing Authority's Construction Branch is establishing its own quality management system and expects to achieve certification to ISO:9001 in 1993. Other quality measures include the selection of contractors to tender for new works building contracts based on their performance on existing contracts as measured by the performance assess- ment scoring system, and the further development of a similar system for use in relation to maintenance building contracts.

Quality assured components are now extensively used on the authority's construction - projects and these include kitchen and bathroom doorsets, domestic cooking bench sink units and steel collapsible security gates. Staircase balustrades and balcony grilles will be added in 1993 and steps have been taken to increase the use of precast facades on standard domestic blocks.

In addition to this, precast staircases and aluminium windows are now specified in all of the rental blocks.

Site safety

A very successful site safety campaign was carried out during the year to ensure that the work sites and nearby areas were safer places for workers and members of the public.

Research and development are being carried out on a number of projects to ensure that public housing continues to satisfy the needs of Hong Kong in the years ahead. These include measures to meet the increasing demand for small household accommodation by adding special annex wings to existing Harmony blocks, constant upgrading and improve- ment of design standards, studies on Harmony block thermal and energy performance and individual colour studies for rural and outlying island sites.

Maintenance

Spending on maintenance and improvement works for the year amounted to $1.4 billion.

A notable feature of the year's maintenance works was the emphasis placed on repairs to the newer housing stock, following completion of the structural repair operations which were carried out on older buildings over a five-year period at a total cost of $1.6 billion.

More time was also spent on leaking shower trays, water seepage problems in bathrooms and external mosaic tile finishes.

In the continuing management of materials containing asbestos, abatement works were carried out in 90 blocks at a cost of $40 million, and asbestos cement roofing sheets were