Targeted rooftop structures in villages present minimal threat to the public

I refer to your editorial ('10 years is too long to enforce the law', December 8). I agree with Keith McNab ('Development chief playing hardball', December 5) and Peter Berry ('Village-house compliance at what cost?' December 7). There is an imperative to see the bigger picture and to apply some common sense, apparently a rare commodity within our bureaucracy.

The government has been complicit in the problem of unauthorised building works, as it has long tolerated such additions, particularly rooftop structures. The photograph accompanying Mr Berry's letter illustrates a village house dated 1976 with an added roof structure. By coincidence, in June 1976 the Executive Council issued a practice note instructing that such 'penthouse modifications' should be treated with a flexible approach under conditions drawn up in 1968. This was the basis for the government's tolerance. The Legislative Council has not been advised when, or indeed if, Exco cancelled this note.

The fundamental factor in addressing these building works, as presented to Legco by Secretary for Development Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, has been public safety, and certainly not bureaucratic compliance with old building plans. The rooftop structures, particularly in villages, present a minimal threat to the public. The law in this case is an ass, and exposes the lack of communication between the Development Bureau and the Transport and Housing Bureau. Mrs Lam and Transport and Housing Secretary Eva Cheng are not getting it together, since where will all the many displaced people be housed?

There should be a simple approach, one which recognises the confused history but which also ensures that the law is strictly enforced as regards any works undertaken since June this year when this issue came to public attention. On pre-existing works, government tolerance should be applied until a property is sold to a new owner, whereupon, before a sale can be legally completed, such registered unauthorised works must be removed. This would be a fair solution, one that minimises disruption to people's lives.

On the contentious matter of the 'ding rights' [the right, or ding uk, conferred on every male New Territories villager over the age of 18 under the small-house policy to build for himself in his village a three-storey home], these should have 'donged' long ago, as they do not appear to comply with either Hong Kong or current mainland law.

P. C. Law, Quarry Bay