Crumbling buildings show Hong Kong needs to focus on important safety issues
- Incidents of concrete falling from buildings in Mong Kok are just the latest symptom of the neglect shown towards property maintenance
- Unsafe, unauthorised building works are out of control, and the government should deal with those problems rather than tearing up Fanling golf course
Nonetheless, since someone had gone to the trouble of issuing a statutory notice, including the usual range of dire threats – huge fines, long prison sentences and so on – I thought it best to go and look.
The door was illegal and would have to go. A quick call to the contractor got the old door removed, a new, safe one ordered and installed and a progress report filed with the Buildings Department. All this was done within six weeks. All well and good, then, with just a lingering doubt in one’s own mind about how lucky we all were to have survived so many years in a potentially dangerous situation.
That might not be the worst of it, either. The falling concrete had come from a new canopy – also unauthorised – that was under construction. In other words, the report on what works need to be done is already out of date. Will that require another survey and a new tender exercise involving further delay?
Stepping back from the individual case and looking from a wider perspective, we can see just how big the problem is. Some 7,000 buildings have been subject to a mandatory inspection order, but 4,000 have yet to complete it.
This is a multifaceted problem which needs a multifaceted solution. The first part must be public education, explaining to people why they need to take care of their own property. Some people might feel their job is done once they have bought a flat, but real life is not like that.
Judging from her comments last week, Mak is aware of the responsibility falling on her shoulders. This is an area requiring relentless effort in unglamorous work over a prolonged period. We should all wish her well.
Nobody wants an administration so overbearing that ordinary citizens responsible for non-dangerous, minor infractions in their own homes feel afraid, but we have to find a way to distinguish between minor, non-dangerous works that can be tolerated and alterations that pose a risk to others. Linn might be better placed to do this if she focused more on the big picture and less on destroying Hong Kong’s world-class facilities at the Fanling golf course.
Mike Rowse is the CEO of Treloar Enterprises