Using industrial building units for arts, cultural, recreational and sports purposes (2016/11/09)(Supplementary)

MR YIU SI-WING (in Cantonese): Deputy President, after the fire in themini-storages of an industrial building in Ngau Tau Kok, LandsD took a series of enforcement actions against non-compliant uses in industrial buildings. LandsD will issue warning letters to owners of non-compliant units, requesting owners to rectify such irregularities within 14 days; if owners fail to do so, LandsD will initiate the procedure for re-entering such units. It is impossible for arts or sports groups in industrial buildings to rectify the breaches or identify analternative venue within 14 days after receiving a warning letter.

I would like to ask the Secretary: How do the authorities come up with the14-day period? Will the Government consider relaxing the time limit for arts,cultural, recreational and sports groups, say, allowing a year's time for preparation? Has the Government considered this?

SECRETARY FOR DEVELOPMENT (in Cantonese): Deputy President, I thank Mr YIU Si-wing for his supplementary question. Deputy President, the difficulty lies in the fact that such a stringent approach has to be adopted if the non-compliant unit attracts flow of people, and other premises in the same building are issued with DGLs. In other words, no one knows what kind of accidents and when such accidents will happen. Therefore, it would be in no one's interest if a longer grace period is given and fire or other accidents happen during that period because such accidents would be disastrous. Therefore, I urge the stakeholders to cooperate with us. Furthermore, it is not that they have nooption. They may move to buildings not having dangerous goods, so that they will not be affected.