Developer should foot the bill: Urban Renewal Authority
It is Cheung Kong unit's responsibility to pay the HK$23 million to buy back land on which it built The Center, renewal authority tells court
A Cheung Kong unit agreed to pay for the resumption of land on which The Center was built, and the agreement is still in force, lawyers for the Urban Renewal Authority told a court yesterday.
The arguments were heard in the Court of First Instance, where a hearing on the claim taken out by the URA against the subsidiary and Cheung Kong began yesterday. The hearing is scheduled to last seven days.
Victor Li Tzar-kuoi, deputy chairman of Cheung Kong, might appear as a witness for the defence in the legal proceedings.
Although The Center, a 346 metre steel skyscraper on Queen's Road Central, was completed over a decade ago in 1998, the dispute over who must pay the cost of buying back the land, estimated at more than HK$23 million, continues.
The case goes back to 1989, when the Land Development Corporation, the former incarnation of the URA, entered into a joint venture with the Cheung Kong subsidiary, Agrila, to resume, or buy back, the land and develop it.
Under the agreement, Agrila was to foot the bill of resuming the land. Cheung Kong acted as Agrila's guarantor.