In addition to improving urban planning procedures, it is necessary to improve administrative efficiency

The Financial Secretary, Chen Maobo, recently accepted an exclusive interview with different media. He has repeatedly stated that planning and development must streamline procedures and speed up approvals. He is considering amending the "Urban Planning Ordinance" to prevent people from abusing relevant procedures to hinder development, thereby speeding up the release of land to build more houses. .

Regarding Chen Maobo’s statement, Liu Guoxun, a member of the DAB’s Legislative Council, later agreed on a radio program. He believed that the consultation procedures for revised plans stipulated in the Town Planning Ordinance in the past were too repetitive and did not fully fit the current IT development environment. , Advocating to delete or reduce the time of part of the links.

The contents of the "Town Planning Ordinance" mainly stipulate the functions of the Town Planning Board and its operating procedures, and allow the Town Planning Board to prepare plans for the development of various districts in Hong Kong to determine the use of land for development and the types of buildings allowed to be erected.

If the landlord wants to change the delineated use of the land on the plan, he must first apply to the Town Planning Board, and the board must hold a hearing meeting within three months of receiving the application to consider the relevant application. There are three weeks for the public to participate in and express their opinions. After that, it will not enter the normal planning process until the Town Planning Board decides to accept the application in whole or in part.

Financial Secretary Chen Maobo accepted an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post and corrected the study and amendment of the Urban Planning Ordinance.

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There is room for simplification in multiple consultations

As for the normal procedure of drawing up plans, it means that after the drafts are prepared, they must be shown to the public for two months. If someone makes representations during this period, it will take another three weeks for the representations to be made available for public inspection and submission. Then, the Town Planning Board will hold a hearing meeting on the relevant representations and opinions to decide whether to recommend corresponding amendments.

The strange thing is that if the Town Planning Board really intends to revise the draft, it will take another three weeks for the relevant amendments to be re-displayed to the public, consulted for further representations and hold hearings before it can be determined that the amendments will become part of the draft.

To a certain extent, the consultation and hearing procedures for the second half of the proposed amendments to the representations are not necessary, because the public should have been given sufficient time to review and discuss the original draft.

Moreover, even if all the further complaints received at this stage adopt a positive attitude, the Town Planning Board will still hold another non-hearing meeting to confirm the amendments that no one denies; on the contrary, when further complaints are received, they will be heard. The news conference may in turn lead to the overturn of the proposed revision of the diagram. Both cases represent that more than a month of the previous time was wasted.

From this perspective, there may indeed be room for reduction in the so-called further appeals consultation.

Internal delays are more serious

But on the other hand, Article 8 of the Town Planning Ordinance also restricts the draft plan to be submitted to the Chief Executive-in-Council for approval within nine months after the first display. It takes six months. Therefore, the entire planning process can only last less than one and a half years at most. However, in recent years, the application for amendment of the plan actually did not take too long in this part, such as Shek Pai Wan Road and Tin Wan, Aberdeen, Hong Kong. The residential project at the junction of Wan Shan Road took only 340 days from the first sketch to the approval, and the residential project in Fanling No. 51 took only 284 days.

The Development Bureau and the Planning Department earlier indicated that they would review whether the "Town Planning Ordinance" can be amended.

(Profile Picture / Photo by Liang Pengwei)

In contrast, the time it takes for the City Planning Board to decide to approve the application and prepare the draft is longer at any time.

Take the aforementioned two projects as an example. The Town Planning Board received an application for the Aberdeen project in April 2016. The internal decision has to wait until October 2016, half a year later, and the drafts will be displayed in 2017 a year later. September: The 51st project in Fanling will be submitted in August 2016 tomorrow morning, but the internal decision date is close to the end of June 2017, which is nearly one year later, and the draft will be completed in 2019, which is another year and a half. March of the year.

For these problems caused by the slow internal work of the City Planning Board, the amendment of the "Urban Planning Regulations" alone may not help, but it is necessary to try to improve the efficiency of relevant public officials.

Accelerating the development of the New Territories depends on reform and accountability