Town Planning Board to deter "destroy first, build later" activities

The Town Planning Board announced approaches to deter "destroy first, build later" activities.

There have been incidents in which application sites in the New Territories have been illegally filled up, with vegetation removed, prior to obtaining planning approval for development in the hope that the Board would give sympathetic consideration to the application as there would be nothing to protect and conserve on the application site.

For a rezoning application or a planning application for an application site involved in an unauthorised development  such as illegal land/pond filling, the Board will not make a decision on the application before full investigation into whether the unauthorised development constitutes an abuse of the application process is made. In addition, when the application site is subject to enforcement action, the Board will take into account the reinstated condition of the site as required in the reinstatement notice issued by the Planning Authority under the Town Planning Ordinance when considering the application. The reinstated condition of the application site as required in the RN will not be considered by the Board as a planning gain in the application.

"The Board is determined to conserve the rural and natural environment and will not tolerate any deliberate action to destroy the rural and natural environment in the hope that the Board would give sympathetic consideration to subsequent development on the site concerned," a spokesman for the Board said.

The Board also noted that the PA would step up enforcement and reinstatement action against unauthorised developments, and the Planning Department would step up public education on statutory planning controls, as well as enforcement and prosecution actions against such unauthorised developments.