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Town Planning (Amendment) Bill gazetted
The Government today (Friday) published in the Government gazette the Town Planning (Amendment) Bill 1995.
Outlining the main features of the bill, a spokesman for the Planning Department said it would enable the Town Planning Board (TPB) to appoint committees among its members to hear objections to draft plans.
"Each committee will comprise at least five members from the Board and the majority shall be members who are not public officers," he said.
The spokesman explained that under the existing Town Planning Ordinance, TPB will give preliminary consideration to an objection to a draft plan in the absence of the objector.
If the objector refuses to withdraw the objection after being notified of the Board's view, he will have the right to attend a hearing before TPB.
"As a result of an extension of the statutory planning function to cover the rural New Territories, the number of objections to draft plans, planning applications, reviews and planning appeals had increased rapidly in recent years.
"There is a backlog of more than 1,000 objections and about 30 appeals pending hearing by the TPB and the Town Planning Appeal Board (TPAB).
"It is expected that the hearing of objections can be expedited when these committees are in operation," he said.
Another provision of the Amendment Bill is to enable the Governor to appoint more than one Deputy Chairman of the TPAB panel.
"This will allow more Appeal Board hearings to be held concurrently and thus expedite the hearing of the outstanding planning appeals," he added.
The spokesman said two technical amendments would also be introduced.
"The first amendment is to put it beyond doubt that a judge may be appointed to the TPAP panel while the second one clarifies the nature of a continuing offence of not complying with the requirement of the notices in relation to unauthorised development served by the Planning Authority under section 23 of the Town Planning Ordinance.