TNAG-2073-FCO40-2952-Hong-Kong-Town-Planning-(Amendment)-Bill-1990-1990 — Page 58

•16-NOV-1990

19:20

HK GOVERNMENT HOUSE

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+852 521 1868

P.04

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I should like to stress that the Bill creates no retrospective criminal liability. The past acts of a landowner will not constitute an offence. The offences which the Bill seeks to create cannot be committed until a DPA plan is effective. And a DPA plan cannot be effective until after the Bill is enacted. Thus the offences cannot be committed until after the Bill is enacted. It follows that no retrospective criminal liability is created and there is no contravention of any Human Rights legislation;

The Government recognises that the Bill will have a considerable effect on the inhabitants of the rural New Territories. But it believes that in general this effect will be beneficial in providing a better and more orderly framework to both permanent and temporary development;

On the question of compensation, no provision is made in the existing Town Planning Ordinance for loss of leasehold interest. It would not be appropriate to provide for compensation in the Amendment Bill, which will extend the scope of the Town Planning Ordinance to cover the whole territory, and is an interim action. The question of compensation, which is an important and complex one with far-reaching implications, will be fully examined in the full revision of the Ordinance. The Administration is considering establishing a special committee to study the compensation issue;

There is no suggestion that all open storage activities in the New Territories are creating a public nuisance in any strict legal sense. 15 there were, action could and would be taken under the Block Crown Lease. The Bill has a wider objective, to provide a proper framework for the development of land in a way beneficial to the New Territories as a whole.

Your letters of 9 and 19 October deal with the question of consultation. I have already explained at our meeting that existing land-use will be permitted under the Amendment Bill. Any consultation carried out by the Administration prior to the publication of the Bill and the IDPAS would, I fear, have produced in some areas rapid changes in the use of land in order to anticipate the legislation. The whole purpose of the legislation would then have been frustrated. That is why it was not possible, in this case, to carry out the extensive public consultations which we