Letter received today from the Home Affairs Dept:

Dear Mr PINK,

G.N. 32 – Roads (Works, Use and Compensation) Ordinance (Chapter 370)
Construction of Cycle Parking Area nearYung Shue Wan Ferry Pier, Lamma Island

Case No. 106

I refer to your email dated 6 March 2012 to the Transport and Housing Bureau (THB) regarding the construction of cycle parking area (CPA) near Yung Shue Wan Ferry Pier, Lamma Island under the Roads (Works, Use and Compensation) Ordinance (Chapter 370) and the email from THB to you acknowledging your objection to the project. Please note that your objection has been referred to this Office for reply.

To facilitate follow-up action, we have assigned your case as Case No. 106. Please quote this reference number in future correspondence.

The proposed construction of a CPA near Yung Shue Wan ferry pier, Lamma Island is to meet specific and pressing local needs and to alleviate safety risks arising from the large number of illegally parked bicycles on the catwalk of the pier. The Islands District Office (IsDO) of the Home Affairs Department is the lead department and the Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD) is the works agent.

Location

The current location of the proposed CPA is in line with the planning intention and zoning of the area and is within the Outline Zoning Plan (OZP). It has also long been the subject site for the proposed CPA for consultation with the local community. The subject site is therefore proposed for use as a CPA.

Design issues

As regards issues relating to the design of the CPA, please be advised that the design of the layout of the proposed CPA (e.g. the clearance between bicycle stands, road marking, traffic signs, etc.) is in accordance with the Transport Planning and Design Manual published by the Transport Department (TD). We have also consulted TD to confirm that the proposed CPA design is technically acceptable from traffic engineering point of view.

Please rest assured that the detailed design of the CPA, including the choice of materials, has not yet been finalized. We would continue to listen to the views of various stakeholders. Landscape architects, maintenance agents and professional engineers will also be further involved in the detailed design of the proposed CPA with a view to striking a balance among various factors such as functionality, implications on further maintenance, aesthetic considerations and coherence with the neighbouring environment.

Environmental impact

As regards your concerns about the impact of the proposed CPA on the environment, you may wish to note that a Preliminary Environmental Review (PER), supplemented by a marine ecological survey, has been carried out by a consultant appointed by CEDD to assess the environmental impact of the project. Two options of the construction of the CPA, namely a reclamation option and a pile-supported deck option, were considered and compared in the PER. The pile-supported deck option was recommended in the PER as it can reduce ecological impact and impact on water quality. Under the pile-supported deck option, about nine circular piles are proposed to be used to support a deck structure. Based on the suggestion obtained during the consultation with green groups in preparing the PER, the northeast side of the existing footbridge near the library will not be covered by the deck in order to further reduce the ecological impact.

Moreover, landscape and visual impacts have been considered in the PER. It is expected that after the proposed CPA comes into operation, the existing condition in which bicycles are parked on both sides of the catwalk of the ferry pier will be improved, thereby leading to positive landscape and visual impact.

In addition to the assessment of the structural options of the CPA as well as the landscape and visual impact of the CPA, assessment in other aspects, including air quality, noise, water quality, marine ecology, fisheries, waste management and cultural heritage, was also covered in the PER. It was concluded in the PER that the construction and operation of the proposed CPA were considered environmentally acceptable.

Conclusion

We hope that the above information could address your concerns and should be grateful if you would consider withdrawing your objection. Please complete the attached reply slip to confirm withdrawal of your objection.

We would like to invite you to a meeting for further discussion with us. The meeting is scheduled to be held at 9:30a.m. on 13 August 2012 at the Islands District Office Conference Room, 20/F, Harbour Building, 38 Pier Road, Central, Hong Kong. Upon receipt of your reply, we shall contact you to confirm the date and venue of the meeting. When you or your representative(s) attend the meeting, please bring along a copy of this letter for identification purpose.

Please send the completed reply slip to us by post, by fax (2815 2291) or by email (joe_cc_hui@had.gov.hk) by 2 August 2012.

If you have any further enquiries, please contact Mr Joe HUI at 2852 4336 or Mr Ricky LEE at 2852 4337.

Yours sincerely,
Joe HUI
for District Officer (Islands)

Encl.

The authorities know better what is best for you.

Please complete the attached reply slip to confirm withdrawal of your objection….

get back and line up!

Several people who made formal objection have received identical letters.
Though I haven't, yet, I expect I will.

Fairly obviously it's just ticking a box before they rubberstamp the project and start pouring concrete.

The bureaucrats have no intention of examining whether the plan makes sense, or listening to what anyone aside from Yu Lai Fan and her friends say, none of them are at all interested in cyclists, pedestrians, or anything else except whose turn it is to get a piece of the action, and we're standing in the way.

I stopped reading after they referred to the pier as a "cat walk"....

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Sabe 1

SNAP, got one too, no intention to respond to this at all, other than come up with a better design!

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T. Clipper

nice response alan

The general gist of my reply was:

You have not consulted with the public, you have consulted with Yu Lai Fan who only has her own interests, and those of the local concrete company owners, at heart.

You have not seriously looked at other cheaper and more environmentally friendly options. You would rather pour more concrete into the harbour because that is what the people on Lamma who support this proposal will benefit most from. They do not want a cycle platform – they want the money that will come from building a cycle platform.

What can we do to have the press involved more to expose this whole corrupt procedure?

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A first-hand account from "Rocky Malcolm the Rock Pile Builder & Balancer Extraordinaire:"

Don't drink the tea! - by Rocky Malcolm

"I had my (slightly surreal) meeting with the Islands District office today to discuss my objection to the proposed Cycle Park Area.

The meeting took place in a conference room with a table only slightly smaller than my living room. One of those big ones with a hole in the middle large enough to park a small car (or several bikes) in. I was ushered in by a minion to find one side of the table was occupied by five people with assorted laptops, charts, piles of paper and other props. The opposite side was highly polished and completely empty, except for a single cup of Chinese tea to indicate where I was to sit.

The central apparatchik and chair of the meeting was Assistant District Officer (Islands), Mr Timothy Tam. He was flanked by representatives of four other Gov't departments who's names I failed to catch. None of the Five had cups of tea.

I abjectly failed to remember the names of the half dozen Rural and Islands committees who had been consulted and had sworn with blood oaths that the people of North Lamma would not for all the tea in China give up their right to a pretty pile supported platform between the library and the pier. When I suggested that the committee members might be less than objective I was informed that they all rode bicycles to and from the ferry pier on a regular basis (and they themselves as bike riders would not give up their right to a pretty pile supported platform etc).

Half way through the meeting I realised that the irritating light in my eyes wasn't just there to make me feel as though I was being interrogated - it was also projecting a map of the pier area on the wall behind the back of my head. None of the Five had referred to, or even looked at the map while they told me about all the procedures and guidelines they had followed and how well their arses were covered. The projected slide had been strategically cropped so it didn't show the area between the Post Office and the end of the pier which is the obvious place for the CPA to be sited.

We talked round in circles for a while, then Mr TT again asked me to withdraw my objection and I again declined. Then he told me my name would be sent on to the Headmaster, sorry Chief Exec and Exco, who will tell them to go ahead and build the CPA anyway. After that I left.

To anyone else going to meet them:
- Move your chair to one end of the table. They'll be very disturbed.
- Don't drink the tea."

_________________
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