Columbarium in industrial building rejected
The Town Planning Board yesterday rejected the city's first application to convert an industrial building into a columbarium.
Yield Surplus International Group's application involved a four-storey vacant industrial building with total gross floor area of 4,348 square metres, in Yip Shing Street, Kwai Chung.
It would have held 43,500 niches but the application was rejected following 679 objections from neighbours and government departments.
To resolve a chronic shortage of supply, the government is looking at proposals such as converting industrial buildings to make more urns available.
However, there were no clear guidelines on how to assess an application to turn an industrial building into a columbarium, said board member and surveyor Raymond Chan Yuk-ming.
'The board and different departments are only using common sense to judge now. We are all waiting for a clear and easy guideline,' he said, referring to a licensing system for private urn facilities proposed by the Food and Health Bureau.
A three-month public consultation on the system ended at the end of September, attracting a total of 520 submissions.
Officials will report back to the Legislative Council early next year.
In its application, Yield Surplus said it would ease demand for niches in two months compared with the government's proposed district-based columbarium development scheme which would take years to complete.
It planned to charge people HK$10,000 to lease a niche from 2011 to 2047.
Most complaints concerned public safety and pollution caused by hoards of visitors who burn offerings during grave-sweeping festivals.
Police and the Transport Department objected because of expected heavy traffic and overcrowding during the Ching Ming and Chung Yeung festivals.
