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MR. HU:-Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and may I also thank Mr. SALES through you. I have one supplementary to ask with regard to para. 3 of Mr. BARTY's answer to my question. I would like to clarify, through you Mr. Chairman, what Mr. BARTY said, "They were all ineligible for shop resettlement but requested the Department to allow them to have a place where they might carry on their business, at least on a temporary basis. On the 21st May, 1966, the Department allocated sites to them for resite shops in the Shek Pai Wan Resite Area, on the clear understanding that the resite was of a temporary nature only and upon clearance of the resite area, there would be no business resettlement". Do I understand correctly that these three huts are legal structures, not illegal structures. Is that correct?
COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT:-They are illegal. Any structure in resite areas is technically an illegal structure, it is an illegal occupation of Crown land. Nevertheless, they were authorized by this Department to be in this resite area as a temporary measure.
MR. BERNACCHI:-One question does arise in para. 1. Mr. BARTY says "all three were authorized resite shops without subsequent resettlement rights" and then it is brought out in para. 3 that they were offered a further resite. Why was it that they were authorized shops and yet without resettlement rights?
COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT:-These people had been living, and I think trading, in the Staunton Creek area some time before, and they and their families all received domestic resettlement when they were moved from the fringes of Staunton Creek. At that time they got domestic resettlement only because their shops on the edge of Staunton Creek did not qualify for shop resettlement. The circumstances varied. It was a question of open-sided canopies, and I think one of them was nothing more than a hawker's stall. Nevertheless, because they had been trading in this area we did agree to offer them temporary sites in Shek Pai Wan in which to carry on their business, in the Shek Pai Wan Resite Area as distinct from the Estate.
MR. BERNACCHI:-Could this whole question of authorized resite shops without subsequent resettlement rights be referred to the Policy Select Committee?
COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT:-Certainly, I think it has been discussed by this Select Committee several times recently.
MR. SALES:-Mr. Chairman, we the Appointed Members would like to agree with that suggestion rather than be deprived of dinner ourselves. (Laughter).
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(7) DR. P. F. Woo asked the following question:-
When the Council accepted the recommendation for the temporary open-air car park charges in 1965, it was not observed that in certain periods of the day the charges are higher than what is prescribed for the multi-storey car parks. Would the Chairman take steps to regularize these charges?
THE CHAIRMAN replied as follows:
Dr. Woo does not specify the period of the day he has in mind. I can only assume he is referring to Saturday afternoons, when the charge in a multi-storey car park is 40 cents an hour, or part thereof, with a minimum charge of $1, whereas there is a flat charge of $1.50 for the whole or any part of a Saturday afternoon in an open-air car park.
It will be seen that in circumstances where a motorist intending to park for less than 3 hours on a Saturday afternoon chooses to park in an open-air park rather than a multi-storey park, he will have to pay more in the former than in the latter because of the operation of the $1.50 flat charge. However, if he uses the number of hours in the open-air park to which he is entitled by his payment of $1.50 he in fact only pays at a rate of 25 cents an hour, as against 40 cents an hour in the multi-storey park.
DR. Woo:-Mr. Chairman, I am sorry I did not specify the period I referred to, because I would have thought that attention had been drawn to this irregularity since it has been the practice for the last twelve months. I have here a scale of charges; temporary open-air car parks, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. $1.50, 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. $1.50. Now the officer in charge of car parks was authorized to charge $3 for any car that parked before one o'clock and left the car park after one o'clock. Mr. Chairman, this irregularity should be gone into carefully.
CHAIRMAN:-Well, Sir, I am sorry I did not quite hit on the anomaly you had in mind, and the best suggestion that I can make is that I put your point to the Transport Advisory Committee.
MR. BERNACCHI:-Mr. Chairman, a supplementary on your answer, rather than perhaps on Dr. Woo's clarified question. Do I take it then that a person parking on a Saturday afternoon in an open-air car park can get for $1.50 a parking that lasts all Sunday as well, so that if he takes his car away on Sunday evening he still only has to pay $1.50?
CHAIRMAN:-That is correct, Sir, because Sunday is free.
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