ExCo forwards temporary housing regime to AL

The Executive Council (ExCo) has concluded the discussion over the bill that aims to establish the legal regime of the temporary housing and trade housing units, a bill that will now sent immediately to the Legislative Assembly (AL).

The ExCO spokesperson, Leong Heng Teng, said yesterday at a press conference that the bill is instrumental to the establishment of urban renewal plans in several areas of the city. The proposal reportedly follows studies undertaken by the Urban Renewal Council and includes inputs from the public consultation.

There will be a series of restrictions to the applications. As Leong explained, “these restrictions aim to allow access to a temporary house or a trade housing units for those that really need those housing units.”

From the bill, and as a first restriction, all the cases where the owners of the housing units are commercial companies will be excluded, as the application of the law is exclusively directed to individual people.

Additionally, the bill applies to those that require temporary housing while their unit building is being rebuilt (in the cases where the rebuild is possible in the same location). When this is not possible, to such property owners, property owners will be compensated and given the possibility of acquiring a house in a different location.

Restrictions were also enforced in what concerns the number of houses that can be acquired or rented under this law. In this sense, one person can only be allocated one unit for trade, regardless of the number of units that he or she possessed and which would be affected by urban renewal projects. The same applies if two house owners are married.

One of the most anticipated outcomes regarding the bill was the pricing for both the rentals and the sales of the trade units, a fact that was far from being clarified.

As the spokesperson explained, “This is a matter to be decided by the Urban Renewal Council and that requires a further and more complex study as well as in what concerns the value of the compensation to [be awarded],” he said, noting that the bill has now been sent to the AL. He also noted that such amounts would be proportionate to “market prices for the units of the same kind and in the same area,” values that would be then set by a dispatch of the Chief Executive.

Regarding the Pearl Horizon buyers, as in the other cases, each unit owner (independently of how many units it was promised they would acquire from the Pearl Horizon development) would be able to acquire only one unit from these government-
built projects.

It is proposed by the ExCo that this law will enter into force on the day immediately following its publication in the Official Gazette.

Heritage buildings with updated information and detail

The Executive Council (ExCo) has concluded discussion over the administrative regulation that promotes changes to the list of heritage classified buildings and protection areas.

As the government’s spokesperson Leong Heng Teng noted yesterday, the Council has concluded the analysis of the project, which aims to provide more detail as well as to clarify the information regarding the building and sites.

Leong noted, “the project for administrative regulation did not add any new items, but the list [of the 128 classified buildings] was properly updated according to the established criteria and current situation.”

Most of the changes promoted had to do with the designation of the buildings and sites, both in their Chinese and Portuguese names. In this chapter, a total of 90 changes were performed to the Chinese names and 82 to the Portuguese designations.

In addition to these, a total of 22 graphic representations of the sites and buildings in the cartographic records were updated. The vice president of the Cultural Affairs Bureau, Leong Wai Man, said that the changes have “the purpose of clarifying and avoiding confusion with other buildings and places with the same name. […] We also added more information, such as the former use of the building or the service which is being provided there at the moment.”

Examples of such changes could be seen, for instance on the “Saint Paul’s Ruins” that from now on will be classified as “Ruins of the Saint Paul’s College (old Church of Mater Dei, churchyard and staircase).”

It is proposed by the ExCo that the new list of names and information will enter into force from January 1, 2019.