8 -
Buildings (Amendment) Bill 1996
Following is the speech by the Secretary for Planning, Environment and Lands, Mr Bowen Leung, in moving the second reading of the Buildings (Amendment) Bill 1996 in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday);
Mr President,
I move the Second Reading of the Buildings (Amendment) Bill 1996.
The Bill seeks to improve the Buildings Ordinance in three areas.
First, as shown in the Kwun Lung Lau landslip, leakage of drains and sewers may affect slope safety. It is therefore essential to ensure that investigations of drains and sewers are done regularly, so as to enable any defect or leakage to be rectified as soon as possible. For public drains, sewers and water mains, Government departments have completed inspection of these buried services in 1995 and necessary follow-up repair will be completed before the wet season this year. In addition, programmes have been drawn up for periodic inspection of these buried services in future. Owners of private properties also have the duty to properly maintain the private drains and sewers serving their buildings. We therefore propose that the Building Authority should be empowered to require owners to hire an authorised person to investigate if there is any leakage, defect or inadequacy with the drains and sewers which serve their buildings, where such drains or sewers are laid in or in the vicinity of any slope or earth-retaining structure, and submit a report of the results to him. The Building Authority will be allowed to exercise this power only if he thinks leakage, defect or inadequacy of the drains or sewers may result in landslips or collapse of structures, and such landslip or collapse may cause a risk of injury to any person or damage to any property.
We also propose that failure to comply with the Building Authority's order or knowingly misrepresenting a material fact in the investigation report will be made offences.
+
Second, it is important to facilitate the recovery of costs of works carried out by the Building Authority. Under the existing Buildings Ordinance the Building Authority may, for reasons such as ensuring public safety, serve statutory orders on building owners to carry out building works. In case of non-compliance, the Building Authority will carry out the works on behalf of the owners, and the costs of works should be recovered from the owner of the property at the time when the order is served.
Page 10Page 11