ENG-1997 — Page 280

LAND, PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES

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government leases as well as the drafting and execution of conditions of sale by auction, grants and exchanges of government land, the apportionment of government rents and premiums, and the recovery of outstanding arrears of government rents. It provides conveyancing services to the Housing Authority in connection with the sale of flats under the Home Ownership Scheme and the Tenant Purchase Scheme, The Financial Secretary Incorporated for the extension of non-renewable leases and The Secretary for Home Affairs Incorporated for the purchase of accommodation for welfare purposes in private developments. It is also responsible for processing applications for the sale of units in uncompleted buildings which are subject to the Lands Department Consent Scheme. During the year, 10 applications involving 7 879 residential units in the urban areas were approved and in the New Territories, 29 applications involving 20 619 residential units were approved.

To meet the Chief Executive's target of producing not less than 85 000 flats a year, the office has commenced the contracting out to private solicitors of work on the approval of Deeds of Mutual Covenant and has simplified and will continue to look into other ways of simplifying the procedures for approving Deeds of Mutual Covenant and applications for consent to sell residential units in uncompleted developments.

Pamphlets on the main services of the office and the legal obligation of property owners to pay government rents were published in early 1997, and are available free of charge to the public. A hotline on consent applications was set up in November. The public can obtain information on developments for which consent has been issued or will be issued in the near future.

Survey and Mapping

The Survey and Mapping Office of the Lands Department defines and records the boundaries of land developments, providing and maintaining survey control networks, producing maps of Hong Kong at various scales for land administration, engineering works and legal purposes, and managing a computerised land information system.

The office provides land survey services for land administration purposes such as land sale and resumption. It maintains a complete index plan in digital form of all leasehold lots and government land properties. Under the Land Survey Ordinance, the office, being the Survey Authority, is responsible for checking the quality of land subdivision plans submitted by Authorised Land Surveyors and maintains a record of these plans for reference by other land surveyors.

The survey control networks provide the essential reference points for all types of land and engineering surveys. A Global Positioning System, which receives signals from satellites, is used for establishing these reference points. More permanent reference stations are being installed to provide wider and more precise coverage. The use of this system for mapping survey is also being experimented with. The received signal data is available to private practising surveyors.

The office produces a large variety of maps, the largest scale being 1 to 1000 and many in colour. All these maps are bilingual or will be so by early 1998. The 1 to 1 000 and 1 to 20 000 digital maps are available for sale to the public. The 1 to 5 000 digital maps will be ready in early 1998.