'More challenging' than Redhill cases

Stacy Shi

Many flat owners at high-end estate Beaulieu Peninsula in Tuen Mun, where numerous illegal works have been found, had signed short-term tenancy agreements with the government.

That made for a situation more challenging than the recent scandal at Redhill Peninsula in Tai Tam, said Vincent Ho Kui-yip, a former president of the Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors.

Ho's comments came after four of 20 homeowners in the Tuen Mun estate were issued with demolition orders during a joint inspection to tackle illegal structures on government land.

Buildings and land officers had conducted comprehensive ground surveys and analysis of aerial photographs targeting 28 seafront independent houses in the estate, which revealed at least 14 houses involved unlawful occupation of government land, and 20 demolition orders were issued by the middle of this month.

The Buildings Department said they had issued removal orders to individual houses in the estate and prosecuted owners who failed to comply with orders previously, but other houses involving illegal structures and unlawful occupation of government land continued.

Although the government generally allows independent house owners in remote areas to rent government land on short-term tenancies for gardening purposes, Ho said authorities had not monitored the situation closely.

Having inspected the estate, Ho said, numerous short-term lease sites led to large-scale building work, such as two-story podiums that exceeded the designated boundaries of the land plots.

The two luxury estates in Tuen Mun and Tai Tam showed irregularities were more likely to occur in remote areas, Ho said, and he urged the Buildings and Land departments to set up a comprehensive mechanism for regulating short-term tenancies on government land and settle on heavier penalties.

"The departments currently only require owners to demolish unlawful structures, but its deterrent effect is insufficient," he said.

"The government should raise the penalties and at the same time speed up the prosecution process."

Ho also said substantial rock formations on the Beaulieu Peninsula's slopes provide a more stable foundation, reducing the risk of landslides compared to Redhill Peninsula.

"However, as it is difficult to know whether the structures are up to standard or not the potential danger cannot be ruled out," he said.

In addition, the two departments completed inspections of all Redhill Peninsula's seafront houses last month. That found only 15 of 85 houses did not have an unlawful structure or unlawful occupation involved.

Election Committee legislator Doreen Kong Yuk-foon said it was outrageous that 83 percent of the detached houses in the estate had illegal structures or occupied government land unlawfully.

She said authorities should allow more flexibility when amending the Buildings Ordinance to make coverage broader and added that banks and other stakeholders should also shoulder responsibility of gate-keeping so property owners are not allowed to trade properties with illegal structures or apply for mortgages.