ENG-2015 — Page 242

12

Planning, Land and Infrastructure

Land Management and Lease Enforcement

The Lands Department manages 427 properties which have reverted to government ownership through surrender, lease expiry, re-entry and other similar actions. During the year, the department took over 28 properties for management and disposed of 10 properties.

The department keeps a register of man-made slopes and is responsible for the maintenance and safety of about 20,000 of them. It inspects these slopes regularly with the help of consultants and in 2015 oversaw routine maintenance and improvement works on 7,034 and 190 slopes respectively. The department's website provides information about the responsibility for maintenance of registered slopes.

The Lands Department administers a Small House Policy for indigenous villagers in the New Territories and approves the rebuilding of old village houses. In 2015, it approved 989 applications to build small houses and 461 applications to rebuild old village houses. The department processes rent exemption requisitions for indigenous villagers' rural properties in accordance with exemption criteria listed in the Government Rent (Assessment and Collection) Ordinance.

The department carries out squatter control work. There are about 6,710 surveyed squatter structures in urban areas and about 382,300 in the New Territories. Under current policy, these structures are tolerated until they cease to exist or are to be cleared for development, environmental improvement or safety reasons. During the year, 212 illegal structures and extensions were demolished by the Squatter Control Unit, in addition to unauthorised structures cleared by other sections of the department in the context of land control and lease enforcement.

In 2015, the department handled 10,485 cases of reported unlawful occupation of government land, of which 7,131 cases required site clearance, including clearance by the occupiers in response to the department's enforcement actions, and 1,508 were cases of breaches of lease conditions.

The department's Tree Unit provides in-house advice on tree and landscape issues relating to leased land, and on tree maintenance matters relating to the health and structural conditions of trees on unleased and unallocated government land not taken up by other departments. The unit handled 4,422 cases concerning trees and landscape issues on private and government land in 2015.

Land Conveyancing

The Lands Department's Legal Advisory and Conveyancing Office provides legal advice and conveyancing services for government land transactions. These include drafting all government land disposal and lease modification documents and checking titles in land acquisitions. It also processes applications for the sale of units under construction in the Lands Department Consent Scheme. In 2015, 41 applications were approved. Of these, 32 applications related to residential developments, involving a total of 11,540 flats. The office also approves Deeds of Mutual Covenant. In 2015, 43 such deeds were approved. It also processes apportionments of

194