27 -
Clause 2
The comments made by some Members of the Bills Committee regarding the hearing of objections to draft amended town plans may, I am afraid, reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the town planning procedure. Under the Town Planning Ordinance, the plan-making function of the Town Planning Board is to prepare and publish draft town plans or draft amended town plans for public inspection and comments. The Town Planning Board is not, I repeat not, the plan approval authority. The power to approve town plans rests with the Governor in Council. The publication of draft town plans or draft amended town plans by the Town Planning Board functions very much like a public consultation exercise in this regard. Similar to other public consultation exercise, it is thus fair and reasonable that the body consulting the public should consider objections or comments to its proposals. This is indeed the spirit behind the existing Town Planning Ordinance which requires the Town Planning Board to consider objections to draft town plans. The Ordinance also goes one step further to enable the public to appear before the Town Planning Board to discuss their objections to draft town plans with the Board, thus providing more transparency and public access to the town planning system. When all the hearings are completed, the Town Planning Board is required to submit the draft town plans together with any unresolved objections and a schedule of the amendments proposed by the Board to meet the objections, to the Governor in Council for a decision. The Governor in Council may then approve the draft town plan, refuse to approve it or refer it back to the Town Planning Board for further consideration and amendments.
The Town Planning Ordinance however requires the Board itself to hear the objections, and there is no provision for delegation of this duty. The large number of objections in recent years has created a considerable backlog of cases to be heard. In order to complete the hearings expeditiously, the intention of the Bill is therefore to enable the Board to set up committees from its Members and delegate the hearings of objections to them. When necessary, several hearings can be carried out concurrently to further expedite the procedure. Any unwithdrawn objections will still have to be presented to the Governor in Council for a decision. The intention is similar to a body which is consulting the public in setting up working groups to consider public comments. There is no question of the Town Planning Board judging its own cause.