LegCo Question 16: Environmental hygiene of single private residential buildings

Following is a question by the Hon Frederick Fung and a written reply by the Secretary for Home Affairs, Dr Patrick Ho, in the Legislative Council today (May 28):

Question:

Regarding the environmental hygiene of the common area of single private residential buildings ("SPRB") for which owners' corporations have not been formed, will the Government inform this Council:

(a) whether it has statistics on the number of SPRB without owners' corporations and its percentage in all SPRB;

(b) of the number of complaints or requests for assistance received by the departments concerned in relation to the environmental hygiene of the common area of such buildings in each of the past three years; and how they were followed up;

(c) of the measures to assist the residents in keeping the common area of such buildings clean; and

(d) whether it will consider sending government contractors to clean the common area of such buildings and then recover the costs from the owners concerned; if it will, of the details of its consideration and the implementation timetable; if not, the reasons for that?

Reply:

Madam President,

My reply to the Honorable Member's questions are as follows:

(a) There are a total of 42,000 private buildings in Hong Kong, of which about 38,100 are private multi-storey buildings (the remaining 3,900 buildings are small houses in the New Territories or stand-alone houses). Of these 38,100 buildings, some 14,000 (37%) have incorporated themselves into owners'corporations (OCs) under the Building Management Ordinance and some 12,400 (32%) have some form of residents associations (e.g. Mutual Aid Committees (MACs), owners' committees, etc.). Another 3,700 (10%) buildings, though without any form of residents' associations, have employed management companies to assist in the management of the buildings. This means that some 8,000 (21%) private multi-storey buildings in the territory, most of them being old tenement buildings, are without any form of management (either by owners or by management companies).

(b) The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) received 5,217, 6,570 and 9,255 complaints concerning environmental hygiene issues in private tenement buildings in 2000-01, 2001-02 and 2002-03 respectively. These complaints were mostly related to refuse accumulation, pest infestation, defective pipes/drains and water seepage. FEHD has investigated these cases and taken appropriate follow-up actions such as issuing warnings or statutory notices to the occupiers/owners concerned and making referrals to relevant departments to address the problems.

From time to time, Buildings Department (BD) also receives complaints about unauthorized building works (UBWs) and building/drainage defects that are related to environmental hygiene problems. However, BD does not keep separate statistics on them. For UBWs constituting a serious health hazard, e.g. illegal pipes or drains, or a serious environmental nuisance, e.g. yard structure obstructing the repair of drainage works, BD will take immediate enforcement action to remove them. For defective pipes or drains, BD will serve orders on the owners to carry out the necessary drainage works to rectify the problems.

(c) & (d) The responsibilities for cleansing of private buildings rest firmly with the owners and residents.

As part of the Government's multi-pronged efforts to combat atypical pneumonia, FEHD has inspected all residential buildings and will address the problem of environmental nuisance in old tenement buildings by taking appropriate enforcement actions. Under the Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance (Cap 132), FEHD could administer warnings or issue statutory notices to the occupier/owner of the premises to require them to abate the nuisance. BD will also continue with its enforcement action under the Buildings Ordinance (Cap 123). The Administration is considering how best to assist these old tenement buildings in the long run.

As part of its community building and public education efforts, the Home Affairs Department has been liaising with building owners to promote good building management and to encourage and assist them to form OCs to facilitate better building management. The Administration has also launched territory-wide cleansing campaigns to promote the awareness of the community to the importance of a hygienic living environment and to appeal to the entire community to jointly step up cleansing of our environment.

May 28, 2003