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1.Kai Tak's aviation center bid grounded

2. Board denied developer fair hearing

3. Judge raps Town Planning Board's ruling on Old HK

1. Kai Tak's aviation center bid grounded
Doug Crets, The Standard 26 Apr 2005

The director of an independent advocacy group says the Planning Department is turning its back on efforts to allow storied Kai Tak airport to be a center for general aviation in addition to its planned role as a cruise ship terminal.

Francis Chin, a retired doctor and director of the Save Kai Tak campaign, which is working with the Planning Department and other groups to decide what is to be done with the old airfield, says the government threw an obstacle in its path that could ruin Hong Kong's future in general aviation.

He says the Planning Department and the Civil Aviation Department (CAD) have put excessive constraints on his group's plans for a runway by insisting on international-standard restrictions on the length and height of the runway.

As an alternative, Chin is proposing a shorter runway and changes to the setup of the airfield, which he hopes to give to the Planning Department before they go forward with the next stage of the decision-making process.

In a letter addressed to Anthony TK Kwan, Assistant Director of the Planning Department and Kelvin Chan, chairman of the subcommittee for Southeast Kowloon Development, Chin explains that during a March 19 meeting, ``the Planning Department put forward some obstacle limitation requirement presented by [the] Civil Aviation Department on a code 2(b) runway according to Annex 14 of International Civil Aviation Organization [ICAO] standard[s].''

According to Chin, the Planning Department objected to a code 2 runway - primarily used for light aircraft - on the grounds the ICAO standards did not allow such runways to operate that close to passengers or cruise liners.

ICAO is the governing body for civil aviation standards around the world. However, consultants at the Federation Aeronatique International, the world air sports federation, including its Secretary General, have told Chin that ICAO standards are ``guidelines'' that can be catered to individual countries and runways, keeping the specific limitations of that location into consideration.

They do not expressly forbid such a runway, Chin said.

If the ICAO was that strictly followed,``Kai Tak would have been closed down 46 years ago, ``because of its reputation as having the most dangerous approach in the world,'' he said.

Common practice before the old airfield was closed was for pilots to take the ``Kai Tak Attack,'' which took Boeing 747 jumbo jets and other large jet aircraft within a few hundred meters of apartment buildings as they banked sharply over Kowloon City into Kai Tak. Passengers thrilled to looking into the windows of Hong Kong apartment dwellers as they descended into the city.

The Planning Department is aiming to make Kai Tak exclusively a cruise terminal for international ships, said Chin. They are using the idea that airplanes would come too close to people and buildings as a way of keeping out Save Kai Tak's plan to further general aviation in Hong Kong.

But Kai Tak is currently the only venue that could support a sustained general aviation training ground for local pilots who currently have to spend years overseas to learn how to fly commercial jets, Chin told The Standard.

In his letter, Chin claims to have solved the problem by shortening his proposed 1,060-meter original stretch to 799 meters. Besides, by elevating the runway 21 meters, he writes: ``There is no foreseeable obstacle limitation.''

The ICAO has four standards of runways, established as code 1, 2, 3 and 4. Code 4 runways are for large commercial aircraft. Code 1, said Chin, could support the kind of aircraft used in training young pilots for flight school.

Each runway has minimum standards for distance, height and regulations on where airplanes can fly on their approach to the runway. Smaller planes suitable for Kai Tak could also be used in the Pearl River Delta.

According to Chin's website devoted to aviation, ``The Chek Lap Kok Airport is not as good as you think. It is genetically designed only for general passenger and cargo transportation and is disabled for general aviation activities.''

``There is no public consultation in this consultation,'' said Chin. He said the process reminded him a little of the West Kowloon Cultural District consultation and the government's insistence on a single developer.

``The board already has it in their mind what they want. [At the March 19 meeting] they told me to sit down and to not waste anyone else's time,'' said Chin.

The Planning Department's public consultation does provide room for a runway. Requests for further comment from the department on the issue were not answered.

2. Board denied developer fair hearing
Albert Wong, The Standard 26 April 2005

The Town Planning Board did not give a fair hearing to the objections of a private developer to the rezoning of its land in Quarry Bay, a High Court judge said.

In the original hearing in February, Fine Tower Associates, a subsidiary of Pacific Concord Holdings, challenged the board, claiming it was not given sufficient opportunities to object to a re-zoning plan that seemed to contradict the rights previously granted to the company.

Pacific Concord originally acquired the Quarry Bay waterfront property in 1993 for HK$300 million, with the intention of building an oil depot. The oil depot plan was rejected in 1999 on the grounds that it exceeded the restricted height on waterfront areas to preserve the harbour view.

Proposals for an ``Old Hong Kong'' theme park were accepted as a desirable concept by the board in 2000, but it considered the development's specifications exceeded the restrictions placed on that area.

After further re-zoning in 2003, Fine Tower submitted the land should be resumed by the government and the company paid compensation or allowed to develop as it wished, rather than have its development plans restricted with low profitability chances. The area is currently used as a car park.

``I have had little difficulty in coming to the conclusion that the board did not act fairly towards the applicant in adopting the procedures it did,'' Justice Michael Hartmann ruled Monday.

The Town Planning Board mandate states that it must give reasonable notice for a developer to consider its objections to re-zoning, allow the developer to be represented and also to have those objections considered fairly before a decision is made.

Hartmann ruled that although the applicant was present at a meeting to debate the re-zoning plan, the decision making process took place largely without the presence of the applicant and therefore denied Fine Tower a fair hearing. He ordered that the objections be re-heard by the Town Planning Board.

In April 2003, the board exhibited the re-zoning plan which revealed a significant reduction in area available to Fine Tower for the purposes of its development.

In accordance with the proper procedures, representatives from the board met with Fine Tower and its lawyers in September 2003. Fine Tower lawyers had earlier warned they would be submitting complex legal arguments, but the board deemed it unnecessary to have the presence of its own legal advisers.

That meeting concluded that the board would defer a decision until it had obtained legal advice.

``Without in any way referring the advice it had received to the applicant, the board then proceeded to come to its decision rejecting the applicant's objection,'' Hartmann ruled.

He also found that the Department of Justice had based its advice purely on the views of the Lands Department, without ever hearing Fine Tower advocate its position, thereby denying its right to have its objections heard.

The judge said his court did not have the professional authority to rule on the merits of the land re-zoning plan, but said Fine Tower did ``indicate at least a viable argument'' and merited and a renewed hearing.

3. Judge raps Town Planning Board's ruling on Old HK
JONATHAN LI, SCMP 26 April 2005

A judge yesterday ordered the Town Planning Board to reconsider a decision against the private property developer behind the proposed Old Hong Kong waterfront theme park in Quarry Bay.

Mr Justice Michael Hartmann told the board to reconsider its October 2003 rejection of Fine Tower Associates' objections to restrictions on the height and size of the park. In the Court of First Instance, he said the board did not act fairly towards Fine Tower Associates, a Pacific Concord Holdings subsidiary, on procedures for a September 2003 hearing.

At the September hearing, the board heard the developer's objections to the draft zoning plan guiding the development. It decided against amending its plan the following month.

The proposed Old Hong Kong theme park occupies two lots near Hoi Yu Street, Quarry Bay.

A board spokesman declined to comment on the judgment, saying the board had not had an opportunity to study it. Pacific Concord could not be reached for comment.

Fine Tower Associates had planned to build an oil storage depot on the site it acquired 12 years ago. But it did not press ahead because of concerns over safety regulations. The developer later embraced the theme park after learning the land would be rezoned by the board from industrial use to cultural, leisure and tourism.

But the board's draft rezoning plan required 44 per cent of the land to be set aside as open space and the rest to be used for "cultural and/or commercial, leisure and tourism-related uses".

Fine Tower Associates believed the restrictions would limit the area, height and nature of the theme park. It applied to the board for a change to the zoning plan but was turned down in October 2003. The developer then launched a judicial review of the decision.

Mr Justice Hartmann said there was procedural unfairness in the board's decision-making process for the October 2003 finding because Fine Tower Associates was not fully apprised of legal advice obtained by the board from the government and not given an opportunity to make representations on that advice.

The board received legal advice and comments from the Department of Justice and the Lands Department on the developer's application before the hearing.

However, the developer was not informed of the "substance" of the advice during and after the objection hearing in September 2003. The board eventually decided against changing the plan.

Mr Justice Hartmann also found merit in the developer's argument that the board's new planning controls would restrict the development to such an extent that they amounted to a de facto deprivation of the developer's rights in the land. He said the board should revisit the issue when it reconsiders the developer's application under his order.