POVISION BASIS OF POSPDS

PROVISION BASIS OF POSPDS

GENERAL CONCEPT

POSPDs in Hong Kong are mainly categorized into three types, namely:

official provision under land lease;
official provision under deed of dedication; and
voluntary provision.

A total of 82 POSPDs provided under land lease are identified, among which 35 in Hong Kong Island, 21 in Kowloon, and the remaining 26 in New Territories. They are principally governed by the Lands Department. Overall speaking, the provision of public facilities (including POSPDs) within private developments for public use may arise under two circumstances.

First of all, it may arise under land sale, where the governmental departments propose the inclusion of public facilities to cater to public needs. Second of all, it may arise in the case of (i) land grant and private development and/or (ii) redevelopment involving planning permissions or lease modification. Developers concerned may propose such public facilities in the planning application to the Town Planning Board (TPB). In usual practice, the requirements under these two circumstances are translated into the lease conditions. In other words, the 82 POSPDs are categorized into the same group (as provisions under land lease) since these provisions are clearly elaborated in lease conditions of the respective developments.

OFFICIAL PROVISION UNDER LAND LEASE

OFFICIAL PROVISION UNDER DEED OF DEDICATION

There are in total 7 POSPDs provided under deed of dedication, with 6 sitting on Hong Kong Island and 1 in Kowloon. They are principally governed by the Buildings Department. Such provision is typically triggered by the dedication of land or floor area of private development for the use of public (i.e. provisions of POSPDs for public enjoyment). As specified under the Buildings Ordinance, the Building Authority may grant concessions or compensate the owners by means of exemption of floor space from the gross floor area (GFA) calculation or bonus GFA. The rights and obligations of the building owner concerned are set out in a deed of dedication and common obligations include:

permit the public to lawfully access and use such facilities;
keep the access unobstructed; and
manage and maintain such facilities to the satisfaction of the Government.

However, it should be noted that not all dedicated areas are made to accommodate the public’s leisure as the commonly known public open space. The purpose of land dedication under the Buildings Department could be broadly sorted into three types:

corner splay (i.e. a small area of about 3m2 at the corner of a building to improve sight-lines of drivers);
public passage only to gain access; and
for permission of certain activities including recreational uses.

This website only focus on the dedication of land for permission of certain activities including recreational uses to align with the project scope on recreational public open spaces. For the POSPDs which the area is presented in the deed as for recreational purposes, they are classified into the ‘official provision under deed of dedication’.

POSPDs on a voluntary provision basis refer to those that are not under the governance of land lease and deed of dedication. There are no standardized definitions or specific characteristics established for this particular type of POSPDs. On the whole, they are public open space in private developments voluntarily and willingly provided by developers out of their own reasons, be it pure kindness, spatial or commercial consideration. Thus, these provisions are not bound by land lease and deed of dedication and the developers (or its representative body) have full and complete authority over the management of the subject spaces, for instance, conditions of use, opening hours, and provisions of seatings, etc.

Currently, there is no readily available list of voluntarily-provided POSPDs. Therefore, the identification of such POSPD requires a profound and extensive understanding of the districts. Our group took the initiative to assemble such a list based on our own observations and secondary resources from the internet. For the time being, there are 24 POSPDs on the list, and 21 of them clustered in New Territories. Due to our limited humans and time resources, the list is far from exhaustive. Yet, with the launch of “Find My Space”, we hope to crowdsource help from the public in frequent database updates.

VOLUNTARY PROVISION

For further details, please click the button to download our summary report.