Villagers oppose private columbarium seeking recognition on Po Toi

Villagers on remote Po Toi Island fear the island's fung shui will be damaged and tourists scared away if up to 2,000 private funeral niches on the island are given official recognition.

They expressed their concerns after the developer took steps to register the niches with the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department as an "operating" columbarium - a prerequisite for seeking recognition under a proposed licensing scheme to regulate private niches.

"We villagers all oppose it," village office chairman Leung Chun-nam, 55, said.

"It affects fung shui and tourism," he said. "Before, this area was for farming and growing crops. I did not sell land to them."

The developer of the columbarium, Splendid Resources, paid HK$3 million for 43 land lots on Po Toi in 2007. It could not be reached for comment. Work on the niches was discovered in 2012 but was halted shortly after the Lands Department questioned whether the development breached the land lease.

All of the 2,000 niches on the hillsides of Po Toi, close to Hong Kong's southeastern boundary, are described by the developer as "underground vaults" to store urns. But the Post found some "vaults" were just surface soil covered by memorial stones.

The developers applied in June to register the site as an existing columbarium - a move that critics argued would enable them to revive the project.