Building Bright - a good foundation for owners' co-operation

南華早報 CITY4 |  CITY |  By Joyce Ng	2009-06-11 標示關鍵字
Building Bright - a good foundation for owners' co-operation
An applicant for Operation Building Bright says the programme, with its generous subsidies, has helped him secure his neighbours' agreement to share repair costs. Lam Rum-kam, chairman of the owners' corporations of the Wing Ming Building in Sham Shui Po, said it had been difficult to get his 120 fellow owners to agree to a HK$4 million renovation last year. Concrete was falling off the 38-year-old building in Yee Kuk Street and new pipes were needed. The owners found the cost - more than HK$30,000 per household - too high and the consultant's suggestions too vague. In the end we fired the consultant and started it all over again this year, Mr Lam said. Operation Building Bright will greatly relieve the burden on owners by giving each one a subsidy of up to HK$16,000, he said. Wai Woon-nam, a Sham Shui Po district councillor, said buildings with owners' corporations faced little difficulty in applying for the subsidy, but those without corporations would have difficulty because owners were unwilling to pay the repair costs even with the top-up. Some of them do not live in the unit and do not care, or they cannot afford the cost, he said. He has nominated 10 blocks without corporations for the programme. Copyright (c) 2009. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.