1  Residents evacuated as building tilts. Chunks of masonry come crashing down
Kobi Chan and Cheung Chi-fai. SCMP 10 July 2008

A substantial crack can be seen running down the side of six-storey Lee Hing Building in Sheung Wan. Photo: May Tse  Source: SCMP

Angry Sheung Wan residents were waiting yesterday to find out when they could return to their homes after having to evacuate them when the six-storey building tilted, sending chunks of masonry crashing down.

Despite the damage, blamed on work at an adjacent construction site, government engineers said the 30-year-old building was still structurally safe and the 30 residents should be able to return after repairs, expected to take three weeks.

A multi-storey crack up to 15cm wide opened up on Tuesday between the Lee Hing Building at 98 Connaught Road West and a taller structure, standing wall-to-wall with it next door.

A building on the other side had earlier been demolished for redevelopment, and the Lee Hing Building was supported on that side by steel arches braced against a third building on the other side of the construction site.

One of those arches bent in Tuesday's incident that sent residents fleeing as lumps of concrete peeled off walls and ceilings.

The Buildings Department has ordered work on the construction site to be suspended while the damage is investigated.

All the affected residents were yesterday relocated to a guesthouse arranged and paid for by the contractor of the construction site, though many of them took shelter in a community hall on Tuesday night.

No one was injured.

The building, erected in the 1970s, is home to 10 households.

Residents said yesterday they had complained to the Buildings Department twice last year about the impact of the neighbouring construction site on their building, but officials kept telling them the building was safe.

"I am really angry about it," said Tsang Yi-ping, who lives on the fourth floor. "Will they take it seriously only when people die? There is little I can do as a small potato. I have entrusted all my life and property in the hands of these officials."

The residents said cracks had gradually developed in the walls since percussive piling work at the construction site started last year.

At one stage, they found the building's entrance door could not be closed, possibly because of a tilt that had already developed.

They have demanded compensation from the contractor and resettlement until they can move back.

The developer of the site, Yu Wing Construction and Investment Company, refused to comment on whether the construction activities were to blame for the cracks.

"We are still studying the problems and there is nothing more we can say now," a spokeswoman for the company said.

James Lau Chi-wang, a practising structural engineer, said the neighbouring construction works might have affected the building, which seemed to have tilted because of a "loosened foundation".

But he dismissed a suggestion that heavy rain in the past month had washed away soil underground and caused the tilt.

 

2  U-turn on housing schemes criticised
Dennis Chong, SCMP 10 July 2008

The government has abandoned helping people buy homes, prompting legislators to lament that property prices are becoming unaffordable for the less well-off.

An academic warned that the government could have underestimated the surge in property prices in the past year and that its policy decision could be based on faulty data.

Answering a question from legislator Tam Yiu-chung, Secretary for Transport and Housing Eva Cheng said: "According to the repositioned housing policy in 2002, assisting the public to purchase their homes is no longer an objective of the government's housing policy."

The assertion came two days after the government said it would not  resume building Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) flats.

Wong Kwok-hing, deputy chairman of the Legislative Council housing panel, said Ms Cheng's remarks were "a slap on its [the government's] own face", describing it as a policy U-turn.

Former secretary for housing, planning and lands Michael Suen Ming-yeung, in setting out nine measures to stabilise the property market in November 2002, said the government would stop building flats under the HOS and discontinue the Tenants Purchase Scheme.

At the same time, he said the government would continue to offer loan assistance to the public to buy their homes.

A bureau spokesman said policy decisions were made from time to time based on market conditions.

According to government figures released yesterday, the amount of  income which must be paid on the mortgage for a 40-square-metre flat worth HK$1.8 million is 32 per cent (the mortgage-to-income ratio), based on the median income of HK$22,700, a mortgage rate of 3.5 per cent, a 70 per cent loan-to-value ratio and a 20-year repayment period.

In addition, 60 per cent of the property transactions since 2004  involved flats worth below HK$2 million.

Ms Cheng told a Legco meeting that the mortgage-to-income figure was much lower than that in 1997, showing that housing remained affordable.

On Monday, the Legislative Council passed a motion urging the government to resume policies which help grass-roots people who are not eligible for public rental housing to buy homes.