Hong Kong landlords set to begin concreting illegal waste hill
Massive illegal site formation to undergo emergency work to prevent a collapse
Landlords behind a massive illegal “waste hill” in Tin Shui Wai were expected to conduct emergency concrete construction work on the massive four-storey structure on Tuesday as government planners last night demanded suspension of unauthorised land filling at one of the plots in question.
In a statement on Monday night, the Planning Department said it had issued an enforcement notice to the landowners to halt any work that may constitute “unauthorised development” within seven days as it had found filling in an area to the east had encroached on land zoned as green belt without proper approval. There were also signs the fill was expanding to the west.
“Such operation constitutes an unauthorised development under the Town Planning Ordinance as no planning permission has been granted by the Town Planning Board," a spokesman said. "There may be new suspected unauthorised development cases which require appropriate enforcement actions." The response came after more than three weeks of public outcry.
The department said another part of the illegal fill had been used as open-air storage for sand since 1993 and was not illegal despite the land being zoned for recreation in subsequent land-use zoning plans.
Vegetation that covered the site was removed early this year, uncovering its original appearance.
In the statement, the government also claimed to have received notice from the landowners that they would begin shotcreting – spraying a layer of concrete over the slope – on Tuesday. The Buildings Department had threatened to take over the work and implement a surcharge if they failed to do so as scheduled.
It comes two weeks after the Buildings Department ordered them to submit a remedial proposal to ensure public safety and carry out shotcreting within a week to prevent the potentially “unstable” and “dangerous” four-storey-high slope from further deterioration before the rainy season. That went ignored.
Land Justice League founder Chu Hoi-dick, who has been protesting over government inaction on the controversy, said shotcreting would just turn the “waste hill” into a “concrete hill” and set a bad precedent for future cases as it would make it seem a large enough mound cannot be moved.
He said covering the hill in concrete was akin to letting landowners get away with hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid landfilling fees.
Yuen Long district councillor Lee Yuet-man said he had been hammering government departments on the matter of dumping as early as 2003, but to no avail.
Lee said the government had responded to complaints in 2007 with the same move: forming an interdepartmental group to investigate the problem. “But they still told us that under the current laws, they couldn’t find anything illegal,” Lee said.
UPDATE: Despite a government order to shotcrete over the potentially dangerous mound by Tuesday, the work was not carried out as scheduled due to rain. The Buildings Department said it had urged the landowners to carry out the works as soon as the weather permits.
