Hong Kong landowner launches court challenge against rezoning rejection

A company that owns a small piece of land in Sai Ying Pun claims the Town Planning Board acted irrationally in not rezoning it for residential use and has urged the High Court to quash the board's decision.

Jonnex International, which owns a 495 square metre site in Tak Sing Lane, filed a judicial review application on Thursday, according to a court document.

The document says the site had been described as an open space since the 1950s and Jonnex and its two directors, Edwin Leung Chung-ching and Hanny Wong Fung-sun, owned it.

They claim the site, which was zoned as an open area in 1970, had been surrounded by buildings of up to 24 and 25 floors since the 1980s.

But they claim there were seven three-storey blocks on the site and that it did not serve the function of being an open space.

The document says the use of the site was discussed in 2006, when the board's metro planning committee found it was difficult to develop the site into a real public open space.