Fight over fung shui bridge hots up
Villagers and a concern group helping them have taken to the Legislative Council their battle against the widening of a bridge in Kap Lung Village, in Tai Lam Country Park.
Inhabitants in the village, in the western New Territories, fear that village-chief Tsang Hin-keung, who requested the widening, will use the bridge to transport materials to build either a columbarium - a facility for storing funerary urns - or housing, and will force them out.
Tsang, who is also chairman of the Pat Heung Rural Committee, which is responsible for the village, asked the government to turn the footbridge into one that could take vehicles, when the government consulted him about work on the new fast rail line that will pass through at least seven villages in Pat Heung.
Tsang wants the widening as compensation for what he says is disruption to fung shui caused by tunnelling for the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link a kilometre away. Last November the government approved his application in principle.
The villagers say he has a conflict of interest, and complain the Lands Department has not been transparent in the approval process.
Land searches show that Tsang has bought 13 land lots since 2007 through a private company in which he is a director. He owns 14 of the 40 land lots in the village.
On behalf of the villagers, Eddie Tse Sai-kit, convenor of the Columbarium Concern Group, asked Director of Lands Annie Tam Kam-lan to disclose the grounds for approving the bridge, and asked whether the department had required Tsang to declare personal interests.
But she did not respond on that, or about fung shui compensation costs for the railway, or approval criteria. 'They simply wrote that they are handling the widening application for Kap Lung bridge,' Tse said.
Last week, the villagers complained to Legco about the Lands Department's actions. 'We have submitted all our documents to the complaints division,' Tse said.
'They will ask the Lands Department to respond. Soon legislators will meet with us and decide whether they will start investigating.'
