SCMP: Squatter digs in amid dumping of waste

Squatter digs in amid dumping of waste
——'Four generations of our family have lived here ... where else can we go?'

By: Cheung Chi-fai

Kwok Ping-kwan sits on a pile of broken concrete, bricks and tiles dumped next to his squatter home in Shek Wu Wai, Yuen Long.

He vows he will never move, despite having been offered compensation to clear out.

But Kwok's patience is being tested as a developer fills green fields with construction waste and turns the site into an open storage area. A mountain of waste looms over the Kwok family home, posing the threat of a landslide during the rainy season.

It seems none of the government departments involved - planning, drainage, environment, lands, buildings and even the Chief Executive's Office - can offer a solution, as they have found no breaches of law and see the matter as no more than a private dispute.

The problem dates back to 1999, when the Town Planning Board approved a Ngau Tam Mei zoning plan that allowed the site, originally zoned as a green belt, to be used for open storage.

The zoning, aiming to regularise haphazard development along the San Tin highway, allowed land-filling of farmland in advance and without the need to seek approval, the Planning Department said.

Friends of the Earth, which has been monitoring the site since 2008, questions if the zoning takes into account the interests of residents and says the low-lying landscape of the Shek Wu Wai squatter area is a notorious flooding black spot.

The group said construction waste had been dumped on farmland the size of two soccer fields near the squatter area since 2008.

This site has been turned into a giant warehouse and area for containers.

Kwok, a minibus driver, said his family had been repeatedly called and approached by men claiming to represent the owner of the site on which their home sits, asking them to move out. Some offered HK$35,000 as compensation, but Kwok said they preferred a home over cash.

"We are not moving anywhere, even if they pay us 10 times more. Four generations of our family have lived here. Where else can we go? We will not bow to threats, " he said.

One elderly woman in the squatter village could not take the repeated harassment.

She signed an agreement to move out for HK$40,000 compensation after construction waste was dumped just a few metres away from her door.

Leung Yat-shun, a fellow villager who owns a block of land nearby, said he had also been approached by some people who wanted him to consider moving out.

He said the dumping destroyed a public path frequently used by villagers. It had been turned into a trench, filled with water on rainy days.

"The lands officers came one day to erect a warning sign, but the sign was discarded by the developer the next day," Leung said.

Mak Kwai-keung, a spokesman for the developer, said yesterday it was acting on behalf of landowners over a business use for the site. He admitted waste had been brought from construction sites.

But he denied villagers had been threatened and said attractive compensation had been offered, including temporary shelter and cash. But he refused to say why the dumping could not be delayed until all affected tenants agreed to leave.

A spokesman for the Environmental Protection Department said it was liaising with the owners of the site to confirm if they had given consent to land-filling. It also pledged to determine if there had been breaches of regulations at the site.

A Lands Department spokesman said it had told the developer to reinstate the path.

Photo below by David Wong:
As a mountain of waste builds up next to his home, Kwok Ping-kwan says government departments are ignoring the problem.