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Following is a written reply by the Secretary for Security, Mr Ambrose S K Lee, to a question raised by the Hon James To in the Legislative Council today (May 21):
Question:
The Fire Safety (Buildings) Ordinance (Cap. 572), which aims to upgrade the fire safety standards of private composite and domestic buildings built in or before 1987, has come into operation in three phases since July 1 last year, with the first phase targeting at 5,000 private composite buildings built in or before 1973. To complement the operation of the Ordinance, the Fire Services Department ("FSD") and Buildings Department ("BD") have commenced inspection of buildings and served fire safety directions in respect of fire safety measures to the owners concerned. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the number of target buildings in each District Council district, and the respective numbers of such buildings which have been inspected and need to improve their fire safety measures;
(b) given that FSD and BD will, according to actual circumstances, permit owners to adopt alternative measures (such as installing a water tank of smaller capacity) in lieu of the fire safety measures required in the Ordinance, of the number of buildings which have so far been approved to adopt alternative measures, with the figure broken down by such measures;
(c) as some property owners have told me that BD recently served orders on them for replacement of the main gates of their units but FSD had not contacted them on other fire safety matters, whether FSD and BD have had coordination over their inspection work so that the owners concerned can conduct the required fire safety works in one go; and
(d) for buildings not being the target of the first phase of the Ordinance, whether BD will take the initiative to inform FSD to inspect such buildings when the former serves to the owners concerned orders for removal of unauthorised building works; if it will, of the number of such buildings which have been inspected by FSD so far?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) It is the plan of the Fire Services Department ("FSD") to carry out between 2007 and 2013 the first phase of the implementation work for the Fire Safety (Buildings) Ordinance ("the Ordinance"), which mainly covers the inspection of private composite buildings built in or before 1973. The Buildings Department ("BD") estimates that there are about some 5,000 of these buildings in Hong Kong at present. As at April 30, 2008, FSD has completed the inspection of 890 of them. The relevant figures for each District Council district are set out in the table below:
District No. of composite No. of
buildings built in composite
or before 1973 buildings
inspected
-------- ----------------- ---------
Central and 900 99
Western
Eastern 310 56
Southern 100 12
Wan Chai 700 82
Islands 5 3
Kwun Tong 150 31
Sai Kung 2 1
Yau Tsim Mong 1,420 199
Sham Shui Po 720 124
Kowloon City 500 134
Wong Tai Sin 150 45
Kwai Tsing 40 12
Tsuen Wan 200 17
North 80 38
Sha Tin 20 2
Tai Po 70 9
Tuen Mun 15 4
Yuen Long 55 22
----- ----- ---
Total 5,437 890
All of the inspected composite buildings mentioned above are required to carry out suitable improvement works under the Ordinance.
(b) As we pledged in the meeting of the Panel on Security on January 25, 2007, FSD and BD, without compromising fire safety, are adopting a flexible and pragmatic approach in enforcing the requirements of the Ordinance.
Among the 890 composite buildings inspected by FSD, 501 buildings with not more than six storeys have been exempted from the requirement to install fire hydrants. FSD has also reduced the required capacity of the fire service water tanks from 9,000 litres to 2,000 litres for these 501 buildings, having regard to the actual circumstances. Furthermore, another 33 composite buildings have been exempted from the requirement to increase the capacity of their existing fire service water tanks to 9,000 litres.
(c)/(d) During its large-scale removal operations, the BD may serve removal orders pursuant to the Buildings Ordinance on owners of the target buildings in respect of their unauthorised building works, which include metal gates that contravene the Buildings Ordinance. Once the list of target buildings have been drawn up, the BD will issue letters to notify the owners concerned about the removal operation.
The objectives, implementation schedules, target buildings and the required improvement works of BD¡¦s large-scale removal operations are all different from those of the Ordinance. However, if the target buildings of the removal operations are also among those covered by the Ordinance (i.e. composite or residential buildings built in or before 1987), BD would remind the owners concerned in the letters mentioned above that they might also be required to carry out certain fire safety improvement works under the Ordinance, and urge them to consider carrying both types of works together. For composite buildings built in or before 1973, FSD will arrange for a physical inspection of the buildings shortly after BD issued the notification letter mentioned above, and inform the owners the details in writing of the required fire service installation and improvement works having regard to the actual circumstances. For composite buildings built between 1973 and 1987 and domestic buildings built in or before 1987, if the owners are willing to remove the unauthorised building works and carry out the fire safety improvement works at the same time, FSD and BD will co-ordinate to cover those buildings in their inspection schedules as early as possible. As at April 30, 2008, FSD has advanced the inspection of 84 buildings built after 1973 at the owners¡¦ request.
Ends/Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Issued at HKT 17:41
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