A Hong Kong NGO has found that half of all sites approved for use as temporary animal shelters may not be operational, raising concerns that the application process was being abused to carve out land for industrial and logistical purposes.
A study of satellite images and site visits by the Liber Research Community suggested that 31 of the 60 successful applications over the past five years involved shelters that only existed on paper.
The NGO, which focuses on land and development research, said on Monday that it found no trace of the flagged shelters online or any sign site operators had bought foods needed to care for animals.
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The group also expressed concerns that the application process was potentially being abused to carve out plots of land for use as brownfield sites and warehouses.
“We discovered that about 80 per cent of the 60 successful applications were in agricultural areas, and 31 of the sites were suspected to be non-operational,” said Brian Wong Shiu-hung, a researcher with the NGO.
He noted that one of the suspicious cases, located in Sha Tau Kok, was believed to have used the relevant site as a warehouse after an application for an animal shelter was approved.
The NGO said the operator later applied to use the site as a logistics centre.
“This made us suspicious that some applicants may have had no intention of running animal shelters and were using this as an opportunity to convert farmlands into brownfield sites,” Wong said.
The researcher said some parties could be filing animal shelter applications because it was easier to then launch a new application that could involve a change in land usage after the previous one expired.
The NGO studied temporary animal shelter applications covering February 2019 to January of this year, finding 80 per cent involved sites in Kam Tin, an area commonly used for the city’s brownfield operations.
In a reply to the Post, the Planning Department brushed such concerns and said the Town Planning Board would have considered various factors, including the environmental and traffic impact, before approving applications.
The department said it would investigate cases flagged by the NGO, but stressed that regulations allowed for different planning applications that involved the same site to be submitted.
Lawmaker Andrew Lam Siu-lo said the problem of illegal land usage in the New Territories was apparent, with the main concern being how effective were the relevant departments’ supervision efforts.
More from South China Morning Post:
- ‘Helpless’: can Hong Kong logistics firms survive eviction? Uncertain future as government takes back New Territories brownfield sites
- Some farmland, green belts can be used as car parks as Hong Kong relaxes land guidelines for brownfield sites
- Hong Kong authorities reassure brownfield operators they may use sites for free until ‘actual eviction day’
- Hong Kong green campaigners find brownfield sites expanding into northern New Territories’ nature conservation areas
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