A court will rule on whether to allow a legal challenge over the status of a converted building that contains niches for urns. A judge reserved judgment yesterday on whether the building should be classified a shrine or a columbarium.
The owners say the Yuen Long building, which they have named The Shrine, is just that and is therefore allowed under planning rules for the area.
'A shrine is a shrine is a shrine,' lawyer Denis Cheng, for the company, told Mr Justice Johnson Lam Man-hon yesterday. 'It is not a columbarium.'
But the government said The Shrine cannot be a shrine because it is used to house funeral urns. It is a columbarium, the government maintained, which is not permitted in the village-type development zone.
The arguments were put forward in an application seeking leave for a judicial review brought by subsidiaries of the owner, Hong Kong Life Group.
In the writ, the six subsidiaries, naming the director of planning as respondent, wants the Court of First Instance to quash a government decision that the business is unauthorised and to grant an injunction to prevent further government action against it.
Cheng said that under the outline zoning plan for The Shrine's vicinity, shrines are always permitted. All complaints regarding the structure of the house had been addressed, Cheng added.