Survey on usage of Hong Kong’s factory buildings makes no mention of subdivided flats
Members of the Town Planning Board have cast doubt over the findings of a government survey on the usage of industrial buildings, saying illegal and dangerous use such as the provision of subdivided flats has not been reflected in the report.
The questions stemmed from a report unveiled by the Planning Department on Tuesday. Of the 27.85 million square metres of floor space provided by the city’s 1,448 privately owned industrial buildings, the department found that the most of the space was used for storage and warehousing (41.8 per cent), followed by offices (24 per cent) and manufacturing (7.8 per cent).
But the use of 14.4 per cent of the floor area could not be determined in the survey.
At a meeting to hear a briefing on the study yesterday, board member Julia Lau Man-kwan asked whether the department had data on subdivided flats in factory buildings – a phenomenon that has drawn concern over the safety and living conditions of poor residents.
A department representative answered that 0.2 per cent of floor space in the buildings was found to be under residential use, but officials did not know how much of it was taken up by subdivided flats.
Deputy secretary for development Thomas Chan Chung-ching added: “The Buildings Department has a scheme to inspect subdivided flats.”
Senior town planner Ng Kim-wai said because staff visited the sites only during the daytime on weekdays, some of the uses might not have been established in the survey.
“Our colleagues went to the units and interviewed people there. Sometimes people refused to answer our questions, sometimes our colleagues could not enter … For those who did not answer, we mailed questionnaires to them and some mailed their responses back,” he said.
Another board member, Frankie Yeung, said the survey methodology had compromised the usefulness of the results. “Visits should also have been done on weekends. The findings are now incomprehensive.”
Citing the example of part of an industrial building being used as storage for a gun club, Yeung said it would not have been reflected in the study because members were likely to visit only on weekends.
