ENG-2003 — Page 272

LAND, PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES

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prosecutions were instituted against offenders for erecting UBWs or failing to comply with removal orders. These resulted in 461 convictions with fines totalling $1.95 million.

To tackle the problem of UBWs, the Buildings Department continued to embark on 'blitz' clearance operations, to demolish in one exercise all external UBWs on a number of buildings in the same district. A total of 1 000 buildings were targeted for 'blitz' clearances in 2003. The programme to remove all illegal rooftop structures on 4 500 single staircase buildings that pose a serious fire hazard gathered momentum. Enforcement action against 713 buildings with illegal rooftop structures was completed, compared with 402 and 632 in 2001 and 2002, respectively.

The SARS outbreak raised public awareness of the importance of proper maintenance of drainage systems in buildings. The Buildings Department inspected the external drainage pipes of about 11 000 private buildings without Owners Corporations (OCs) or Mutual Aid Committees (MACS). For the other 18 000 buildings with OCs, MACS or management companies, the department advised them to inspect their drains. A total of 1 811 drainage repair orders were issued and 1 913 buildings had defects rectified.

A Working Group on Building Design for a Clean and Healthy Environment was set up to review the existing relevant regulations, identify new and improved building design standards and propose ways to achieve a clean and healthy built environment. As part of the Government's newly formed Team Clean's measures to improve environmental hygiene, the Buildings Department took part in a joint operation with other relevant departments to clean up 85 priority district 'black spots' and launch six pilot projects to rectify environmental hygiene problem in target areas. A total of 839 UBWs and 494 drainage defects were removed or rectified in these operations.

Under the Fire Safety (Commercial Premises) Ordinance, joint inspections with the Fire Services Department were made to improve fire safety in commercial premises built before 1987. For prescribed commercial premises (banks, betting centres, jewellery shops, shopping arcades, supermarkets), 194 Fire Safety Directions were issued to 120 premises requiring the owners concerned to remedy infractions. For specified commercial buildings (built before 1987), 3 537 Fire Safety Improvement Directions were issued to 140 buildings requiring upgrading of fire safety standards and facilities.

The recently enacted Fire Safety (Buildings) Ordinance requires the upgrading of essential fire safety provisions in composite and domestic buildings built before 1987. When the ordinance comes into operation, 9 000 composite buildings designed for both domestic and commercial uses will be required to upgrade fire service installations and fire safety construction. The upgrading programme will then be extended to cover the remaining 3 000 domestic buildings in which the fire risk involved is lower.

Under the Building Safety Loan Scheme, 2 588 applications with a total loan amount of $77.76 million were approved during the year.

Starting from November 2002, a total of 550 buildings were selected for action. under the Coordinated Maintenance of Buildings Scheme. Owners of 300 buildings were motivated to take up their maintenance responsibilities, and repair or other improvement works were completed on 131 of these buildings.