Treatment of industrial buildings must be two-pronged

Recently in an industrial building fire, claimed three people life. The fire units were found to be divided into 17 separate rooms, and the Buildings Department did not receive records of the owners’ use of the notice of change or declaration of minor works. The Buildings Department has indicated that it will follow up the incident and consider prosecuting the relevant parties.

It is not only entirely correct to prosecute offenses against the safety of residents and to protect the safety of passengers, but also to detect problems and take immediate action. However, in the case of illegal construction, and the BD has limited staff and other priorities to deal with the situation, the Government is often encountered after the death of human beings to take enforcement action.

According to unofficial statistics, there are at least 10,000 people living in industrial buildings. And many were divided into a number of small units of industrial buildings to store excessive dangerous goods, and therefore had a fire before. I suggest that the Government should ask the Security Bureau and the Transport Bureau to set up a mechanism to conduct a comprehensive inspection of all industrial buildings and classify the illegal alteration works at a dangerous level to correct the safety of users or households as soon as possible. When necessary, the Government should take the initiative to clear the illegal facilities. This work naturally requires additional manpower and resources. The Government should use the summer vacation to be a comprehensive plan and then submit a proposal in the Legislative Council meeting in October. I believe that different parties will support this life-related work.

However, the problem of housing construction needs to be flexible. The circumstances of the harm to the tenants should not be accepted. However, the Government should consider allowing the owners to do so if the safety of tenants can be safeguarded through appropriate alteration or fire fighting facilities. During the improvement period, whether the tenants need to be temporarily removed from the construction and how they should be placed, the Government should also consider the details. In addition, as I have suggested in this column, the Government should allow some of the industrial and commercial buildings to be converted into legal compliance housing estates.

It is a tragic reality to meet the needs of the grassroots level and expand to the students and the middle class. This is the reason for dealing with the two-pronged approach.