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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Many of the problems that come before Urban Councillors serving in their respective Wards arise from the bad management of multi-storey buildings.
The existing provisions regulating the rights and obligations among the flat owners themselves are unsatisfactory and in many cases impossible of enforcement. There are no provisions to facilitate enforcement by Government of rules and regulations relating to public health, fire precaution measures, building ordinance requirements, payment of premium, taxes, etc.
Whilst the long term solution would be the introduction of the factors system when we have sufficient housing managers, to meet immediate requirements and to remove many of the difficulties and inequities attending the co-ownership of multi-storey buildings I suggest that Government should consider introducing legislation for their proper management and control. These provisions should aim at giving adequate and effective remedies to flat owners against defaulting owners and for registration of outstanding liabilities against their property until payment.
To facilitate the enforcement of public health, fire precaution measures and other requirements the proposed enactment should also impose on owners of multi-storey buildings the requirement to appoint a caretaker or Management Committee to enable Government to sue the management committee or caretaker for breach of public health or fire precaution regulations. The Committee or caretaker that comply with the requirements or pay the penalty should in turn be enabled to recover all expenses against the flat owners. This will avoid the present cumbersome process of having to summons all the co-owners of a multi-storey building for such offences as mosquito breeding on a rooftop. At the same time a standard comprehensive form of Deed of Mutual Covenant preferably with a Chinese translation should be drawn up which future developers may adopt and modify and which may apply to all cases where they are not in conflict with existing provisions. This would bring all existing covenants up to the required standard and will deal with contingencies not provided for in existing documents.
I urge that the problems be gone into in earnest and that necessary legislation be introduced without delay.
I would also like to take this opportunity to say a word about advertisements. The way that advertisement signs are coming up everywhere and all over the place projecting onto the streets and blocking each other, seriously affects the appearance of our city.
The appearance of some of our main roads, hillsides and public places have likewise been affected by direction signs which do not harmonize with the surroundings or the landscape and in many cases are simply advertisement signs.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
The Sub-Committee of the Urban Amenities Select Committee on advertisements and the department staff have been hard at work trying to formulate a policy and to devise rules for the control of advertisements. The Council's statement of aims for 1966 on advertisements reads: --
"To finalize the Council's future policy on the control of advertisements to enact appropriate by-laws and to seek provision of the staff required to enforce them."
In my view the results of their efforts and the efforts of the Council to beautify the place by amenity planting can be seriously affected if signs of all kinds are allowed in public streets and the Council continues to have no say in the grant of permits for such signs.
I therefore urge that Government should make this Council the authority to grant permits for such advertisement signs, direction signs or placards.
With these remarks I support the motion before Council.
MR. FUNG HON-CHU :—Mr. Chairman, may I have your permission to correct a point just brought up by my good friend Mr. CHEUNG? Members of the UMELCO office are always glad to receive complaints from the public. They feel, however, that they can deal better with complaints of a public nature rather than complaints of an individual grievance or problem.
MR. R. H. LOBO:-Mr. Chairman, Sir, as a junior member and participating for the first time in the Council's Annual Conventional Debate, I am afraid my remarks will lack the authoritative tone of some of my more experienced senior colleagues; nevertheless, I want to make my observations for what they are worth.
I shall speak on a few subjects in which I have a special interest and with which I am closely identified in Council, being concerned with 4 Select Committees of which I am a member. However, before doing so, I would like to thank you Mr. Chairman, and through you members of your Department, for all the co-operation extended to me. I would like to make special reference to the Secretaries, Mr. TINSON, Mr. FAIREY and Mr. Ross. Indeed it has been a pleasure.
The first subject I want to speak on concerns Health Education-- From the low incidence of notifiable diseases in the Colony, one is
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