New Team Planned To Crack Down On Land Abuse

The government said on Tuesday it will set up a special enforcement team to handle serious violations of land use, such as illegal occupation of government land.

In an interview with RTHK, the director of the Lands Department, Thomas Chan, said this team will hopefully be established within this financial year.

The proposal to set up the action team follows the Ombudsman’s criticism of the department last year for lax enforcement action in the New Territories. The Ombudsman said the department had failed to review its strategy of “straightforward cases first, thorny cases last”.

Chan said this is now going to change and officials will put more effort into tackling the serious cases. But he said there will be room for the department to “be more lenient” with less serious violations – such as disabled people building small slopes on government land to provide them with better accessibility.

Chan said the new unit will consist of about 60 officers. He said they will also target structures that are subdivided into many units to be rented out as residential homes – ideally, before the flats are occupied. He said this will ensure swifter action and create a greater deterrent effect.

Chan said an 80-member team will also be set up to deal with projects by private developers, involving large-scale land exchange or the amendment of land leases. The aim is to centralise the process and speed up the freeing up of land.

Any cases involving more than 500 residential units, or over 10,000 square metres of commercial or industrial areas, will come under the mandate of this new team.