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Towngas eyes development partnership 2.
$1.1b Customs HQ under fire 3.
Proposal to boost building penalties
1. Towngas eyes development partnership Hong
Kong and China Gas (Towngas) may team up with its parent Henderson Land Development
to develop a residential site in To Kwa Wan. Towngas managing director Alfred
Chan said yesterday a link-up was possible but that details for such a plan had
not been considered. The Town Planning Board on May 31 gave the green light to
the locally listed gas supplier to build the tallest residential blocks in To
Kwa Wan. Towngas plans to build five 59-storey residential blocks on the Ma Tau
Kok Road site to provide 2,040 flats with an average floor area of 480 square
feet. ABN Amro analyst Rohan Dalziellwe forecasts a development profit of HK$1.7
billion over 2004 and 2005 if the gas supplier forms a 50-50 joint venture with
Henderson Land to develop the site. Meanwhile, Chan said Towngas was in talks
to develop natural gas pipelines and facilities in 10 to 20 mainland cities. He
said the listed company had about HK$2 billion cash on hand. Towngas last week
sealed joint-venture agreements worth 1.2 billion yuan (HK$1.13 billion) with
four cities in the eastern province of Jiangsu. Towngas set up joint ventures
in two other Jiangsu cities last year. [Source:
Hong Kong iMail, 11 June 2002] 2.
$1.1b Customs HQ under fire
Legislators yesterday demanded a more detailed breakdown of the "frightening"
cost of a proposed $1.14 billion 35-storey new Customs headquarters before the
project is submitted for approval. The proposed headquarters is due to be built
on a 2,944-square-metre site at Tin Chiu Street in North Point, members of the
Legco commerce and industry panel were told. The building would mainly house the
various administrative offices, presently scattered around commercial blocks or
government offices in various districts. It would provide Customs officers with
34 per cent more space for work. Facilities would include an indoor firing range,
identification parade room, changing room and multi-function room. Selina Chow
Liang Shuk-yee, of the Liberal Party, questioned why the project was so costly,
and demanded a more detailed breakdown of the costs. "The Liberal Party in
principle supports putting offices in different districts into one main block.
But the cost of the project, at $1.14 billion, is rather frightening," said
Mrs Chow. Principal Assistant Secretary for Commerce and Industry Philip Chan
Kwan-yee argued that the Customs headquarters' cost was not unusually high, citing
the recently approved police headquarters at New Territories South. The average
construction cost for the new Customs headquarters was $11,890 per square metre,
compared to $11,900 per square metre for the police New Territories South headquarters.
"What is more important is that we should look at the facilities to be housed
in the new headquarters, whether the facilities are Rolls Royce-class or basic
and necessary," said Mr Chan. With the new headquarters, about 1,360 square
metres of rented office space and three rented car parking areas would no longer
be needed, resulting in a saving of about $2.5 million a year, said Mr Chan. At
present, the Customs department does not have a designated headquarters. Its main
offices are located at the Harbour Building in Central. Deputy panel chairman
Hui Cheung-ching said North Point was not a central business area and the costs
should not be so high. Non-affiliated legislator Lui Ming-wah asked whether putting
so many offices in one building would affect the efficiency of operations. Mr
Chan promised more details would be provided when the project was put to the public
works subcommittee later this month for funding approval. But panellists refused
to endorse the project. Mrs Chow said: "There is no point putting it forward
to the public works subcommittee without this panel's endorsement." Separately,
panellists also urged the Government to support the environmental technology industry
in Hong Kong. They also criticised officials for not doing enough to improve the
business environment. [Source:
SCMP, 11 June 2002] 3.
Proposal to boost building penalties
The Government has proposed increasing some penalties for substandard or dangerous
building works by four to six times. Individual property owners may also be prosecuted
if they fail to co-operate with their owners' corporation, which is effectively
their building's management committee, to remove unauthorised structures. The
proposals are among a package of amendments to the Buildings Ordinance, to be
introduced for Legco approval in the next legislative session starting from October.
The existing penalties for dangerous or substandard works range from $50,000 to
$250,000 and imprisonment between one to three years. In a paper to lawmakers,
the Planning and Lands Bureau said the penalties had not been reviewed for 20
years. "Their deterrent effect has been eroded. We propose to increase the
maximum fines for selected offences by between four and six times their current
level," the bureau said. To enable owners' corporations to more easily comply
with statutory orders for repair works and removal of illegal fixtures, the Government
has suggested empowering the building department to sue defiant property owners.
Officials said the owners' corporations might have difficulties doing the repair
work as some owners might refuse to share the costs. The Government said when
it served orders to owners' corporations for compliance, it would at the same
time also alert individual owners about the risk of being prosecuted. "We
will ensure that this deterrent will only be resorted to when the owners continue
to refuse to co-operate without reasonable excuse," the paper said. [Source:
SCMP, 11 June 2002] |  |
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