Eased height limits pave way for taller buildings in Quarry Bay

Taller buildings will be allowed in Quarry Bay after the Town Planning Board accepted a developer's suggestion to ease height limits on redevelopments in Taikoo Place.

The decision will benefit plans by Swire Properties, approved in the 1990s, to redevelop Somerset House, Cornwall House and Warwick House into two commercial high-rises.

The board yesterday agreed to Swire's counterproposal to relax the height limits for both high-rises to 225 metres and 195 metres.

The developer had initially wanted those buildings to be 295 metres and 160 metres high, but the Planning Department last year proposed height limits on new commercial developments in Quarry Bay ranging from 100 metres to 200 metres.

The board's decision was challenged by residents and the district council on the grounds that the relaxed restrictions would undermine the protection of ridgeline views: some 'free building zones' - the proportion of visible hilltop to building height - would be reduced from 20 per cent to just 5 per cent.

The board received about 300 objections after the Planning Department's proposal. It relaxed the rules for Taikoo Place after listening to objectors' views yesterday.

But the developer is required to reserve a 10-metre-wide, non-building area on the site of Somerset House to allow better movement of air. The board rejected Swire's request to confine the non-building area to the ground level. Swire had opposed the proposed height restrictions, under which the two high-rises could not exceed 200 metres.