16-NOV-1990 19:23
HK GOVERNMENT HOUSE
+852 521 1868
P.09
During 1986-7 the rate of change was such as to show the
administration that legal powers of control were necessary.
During 1988-9 an addition of some 82 ha of newly converted
open storage in North Western New Territories alone
convinced the Government that if it did not move faster to
institute planning controls in the New Territories than it
was in a position to move in respect of the revision of the
whole Ordinance, the mixed pattern of land uses in many
areas of the rural New Territories would be virtually
incapable of future planning and order.
9.
The second was
P
Given that some form of
control over change of use was necessary,
would it not have
been better and more acceptable to have proposed an
administrative control system? The answer is that it could
not have worked. In making a change of use in their land,
owners are exercising rights which have been confirmed by
the courts. So the only way in which these rights can be
properly restrained, whether in the public interest or not,
is by agreement or by ordinance, and the administration had
no reason to expect land owners to agree to voluntary
restraints against their own immediate interests.
10.
So what about a statutory licensing system?
The answer is that it is inappropriate.
The kind of
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