Responsible Department (Translation) Minutes of the 1St Meeting of the Housing Affairs Committee (2021) of Kwai Tsing District C
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Responsible Department (Translation) Minutes of the 1st Meeting of the Housing Affairs Committee (2021) of Kwai Tsing District Council Date： 8 February 2021 Time: 10:00 a.m. – 12:10 p.m. Venue: K&T DO Conference Room Attendee Time of Arrival Time of Departure Mr CHOW Wai-hung, Rayman (Chairman) 10:38 a.m. End of Meeting Mr HON Chun-yin (Vice-chairman) Start of Meeting End of Meeting Mr CHEUNG Man-lung 10:14 a.m. End of Meeting Mr HUI Kei-cheung Start of Meeting End of Meeting Mr KWOK Tsz-kin 10:45 a.m. End of Meeting Mr LAU Chi-kit Start of Meeting End of Meeting Ms LAU Kwai-mui Start of Meeting End of Meeting Miss LEUNG Ching-shan Start of Meeting End of Meeting Mr LEUNG Kam-wai Start of Meeting End of Meeting Ms LEUNG Kar-ming Start of Meeting 10:48 a.m. Mr LEUNG Kwok-wah Start of Meeting End of Meeting Mr LEUNG Wing-kuen 10:05 a.m. End of Meeting Mr LEUNG Yiu-chung 10:38 a.m. End of Meeting Mr NG Kim-sing 10:21 a.m. End of Meeting Mr TAM Ka-chun, Warren Start of Meeting End of Meeting Mr TONG Ho-man Start of Meeting End of Meeting Mr TSUI Hiu-kit 11:17 a.m. 10:46 a.m. Mr WONG Bing-kuen Start of Meeting End of Meeting Mr WONG Tin-yan Start of Meeting End of Meeting Mr WONG Yun-tat, Ivan 10:10 a.m. End of Meeting 1 Responsible Department In Attendance Mr SIN Chung-kai, SBS, JP Chairman of the Kwai Tsing District Council Mrs LAI CHAN Wai-fan, Clara Senior Housing Manager (Kwai Chung), Housing Department Ms Mak Siu-ling Senior Property Service Manager/Kwai Chung, Housing Department Mr WONG Wai-sing Professional Officer 2-4/Joint Office 2, Joint Office of Building Department and Food and Environmental Hygiene Department Ms LAW Yue-kwan Senior Health Inspector (Joint Office) Kwai Tsing, Food and Environmental Hygiene Department Mr HEUNG Man-ching, Paul Building Surveyor D4-4, Building Department Miss YIM Yik-huen, Bonnie Assistant District Officer (Kwai Tsing), Kwai Tsing District Office Miss CHANG Hiu-hung, Regin (Secretary) Executive Officer (District Council) 2, Kwai Tsing District Office Absent with Apologies Mr LAM Siu-fai (With prior notice) Miss LO Yuen-ting (With prior notice) 2 Responsible Department Opening Remarks (Since the Chairman had not yet arrived at the conference room, the Vice Chairman presided over the meeting as the Temporary Chairman.) The Temporary Chairman welcomed Members and representatives of government departments to the 1st meeting of the Housing Affairs Committee (HAC) (2021) of Kwai Tsing District Council (K&T DC). 2. The Temporary Chairman welcomed Mr HEUNG Man-ching, Paul, Building Surveyor/D4-4 of Building Department (BD) to attend the meeting as a department representative. 3. The Committee unanimously endorsed the application for absence by Mr LAM Siu-fai and Miss LO Yuen-ting. Confirmation of Minutes of the 6th meeting held on 1 December 2020 4. Miss LEUNG Ching-shan moved a motion to confirm the minutes. The motion was seconded by Ms LAU Kwai-mui. The Committee endorsed the said minutes unanimously. Discussion Items The Problem of Adjoining and Connected Drainage Pipes and Virus Transmission in Units of Tai Wo Hau Estate (Proposed by Mr WONG Bing-kuen) (HAC Paper No. 1, 1a/D/2021) 5. Mr WONG Bing-kuen introduced the Paper and hoped that the Housing Department (HD) would explain in details how it would solve the problem of virus transmission caused by the adjoining and connected drainage pipes in the old wing of Tai Wo Hau Estate. 6. Ms MAK Siu-ling, Senior Property Service Manager (Kwai Chung) of HD gave a consolidated response as follows: (i) The designs of buildings under the Hong Kong Housing Authority (Housing Authority) were in accordance with the standard block design adopted for public housing at the time of development, and met the 3 Responsible Department construction standard of the Housing Authority at the time. (ii) The drainage system of Fu On House was a shared U-shaped water trap design which was in line with the construction standard of the Housing Authority at the time. (iii) If public housing tenants suspected a problem with the unit pipes or that the pipes gave off bad odour, they should immediately notify the housing estate office so that staff could be sent to examine the pipes in the units and carry out required maintenance. 7. Mr HUI Kei-cheung put forth enquiries and opinions as follows: (iv) HD stated in the written reply that the sewage pipes of a total of eight buildings in Tai Wo Hau Estate were connected to adjacent units. He enquired about the inspection done by HD since the outbreak of COVID-19 till now and hoped HD could provide detailed information after the meeting. (Post-meeting note: HD indicated after the meeting that only six buildings in Tai Wo Hau Estate used shared U-shaped water traps design, including Fu Wing House, Fu Wah House, Fu Kwai House, Fu On House, Fu Man House and Fu Pong House.) (v) Although the design of the drainage system did not violate the standards of the time, the residents hoped that HD could improve the design of the drainage pipes in response to the outbreak of COVID-19 to block the horizontal transmission of virus. (vi) HD stated that it would take the initiative to conduct regular inspections in public rental housing (PRH) and provide timely maintenance. He asked about the improvement measures taken by HD. 8. Mr LEUNG Kwok-wah put forth opinions and enquiries as follows: (i) The standards at that time might not be in line with the current one. (ii) He asked whether HD had reviewed if the design of old PRH could tie in with the current needs. 4 Responsible Department (iii) He took the PRH of Shek Lei as an example, after the SARS epidemic in 2003, HD had added U-shaped water traps in all units of that housing estate. At present, some PRH units shared the same drainage pipe. He believed that HD should take the initiative to review the design of all drainage pipes instead of handling the problem only when the residents suspected the problems and made enquiries. (iv) HD should improve the design of drainage pipes in PRH so that each unit could have an independent drainage pipe. 9. Mr WONG Bing-kuen put forth enquiries and opinions as follows: (i) He took Fu On House of Tai Wo Hau Estate, which was built in 1980s, as an example. Although the units of the old wing of the building did not have separate U-shaped water traps, HD adopted the improved design in the new wing buildings which were built subsequently and installed separate U-shaped water traps in those units. He asked why HD could keep abreast with the times in that case but turned a blind eye upon the safety of old units without separate U-shaped water traps under the current epidemic. (ii) HD should explain to the residents whether the virus would spread in old estates with adjoining and connected drainage pipes like Fu On House. 10. Mr LAU Chi-kit put forth enquiries and opinions as follows: (i) He asked HD whether they would only deal with the problems when problems arose. (ii) The written reply of HD could not answer the questions of Mr WONG Bing-kuen so he hoped HD could explain in details. 11. Miss LEUNG Ching-shan put forth enquiries and opinions as follows: (i) The progress of drainage inspection of HD was not satisfactory. She took Kwai Shing West Estate as an example, HD had promised to deploy additional manpower. However, after inspection of the two buildings, the manpower was deployed to Shek Yum Estate and the inspection of drainage pipes in Kwai Shing West Estate had stopped. She asked how HD would speed up the inspection of drainage pipes. 5 Responsible Department (ii) She had asked the Environment Bureau about the testing results of the sewage samples of Kwai Shing West Estate, but did not receive a reply. She believed that HD had the responsibility to follow up and hoped that it would give an account of the inspection results of the drainage pipes. 12. Mr LEUNG Kam-wai put forth opinions as follows: (i) If HD considered that the drainage pipes in PRH were in line with the current standard and would not further improve them, it meant HD had not fulfilled the responsibilities of a contractor. (ii) There were concerns over similar pipes. HD should improve the design of pipes as soon as possible instead of taking actions only when there was an outbreak of epidemic. 13. Mr LEUNG Kar-ming put forth opinions as follows: (i) When the epidemic broke out in Hong Mei House of Cheung Hong Estate, HD only sent staff to inspect the pipes in Hong Mei House. As for other buildings with the same type of pipe design, the inspection progress was slow. It was not until recently that HD made a provision for Cheung Hong Estate to set the schedule of pipes inspection. (ii) To her understanding, HD had insufficient staff to inspect and repair pipes. She hoped that HD would deploy additional staff to speed up the inspection and repair process. (iii) It was useless to check the pipes without follow-up actions. Therefore, upon completion of inspection, HD should repair the problematic locations as soon as possible to eliminate the hidden virus.