A company associated with Li Ka-shing's Hutchison Whampoa mounted a legal challenge yesterday to a rezoning that blocked the firm's plan to convert 78 car park spaces at the Cheung Kong Center in Central into a supermarket.
Turbo Top, registered owner of the land at the junction of Queen's Road Central and Garden Road, argued in the Court of First Instance that the Town Planning Board misused its power in requiring the company to keep 800 public car park spaces under a rezoning plan.
The company, which has Hutchison Whampoa's managing director Canning Fok Kin-ning as a director, wants the court to quash the decision made by the board in January.
Benjamin Yu SC, for Turbo Top, accused the board of 'micromanaging' the development and planning of a 'specific building'. Under the Town Planning Ordinance, he said, the board was only empowered to adopt a 'broad-brush' approach in the planning and development.
Yu said the car park was substantially underused and that the supermarket would serve a public need.
According to documents filed in court, Turbo Top proposed the supermarket plan after studies showed the car park was only 70 per cent occupied at peak periods.
It then applied to government departments to convert 78 of the 800 spaces into a supermarket.
