Macau faces building management gap as nearly 5,000 structures lack management oversight

[Photo: Lynzy Valles]

Macau has nearly 5,000 buildings over 30 years old – two-thirds of the city’s total – but only 933 have active management committees, lawmaker Chan Lei Kei told the Legislative Assembly (AL) yesterday, warning that “three-no buildings” are becoming a major community safety hazard.

Macau faces a dual challenge of aging residents and aging buildings, Chan warned yesterday, urging a “four-party” model involving government, community groups, residents, and businesses to tackle building management woes.

Citing data from the “Seven-Block Building Cluster in Iao Hon” survey, Chan noted that nearly 5,000 buildings in Macau – about two-thirds of the city’s total – are over 30 years old, with more than 1,700 facing structural aging issues.

However, as of the end of April, only 933 housing and private building management entities had successfully registered their meeting records and remained within their terms, representing an extremely low proportion.

He emphasized that the large number of “three-no buildings” – those lacking management organizations, property companies, and resident self-discipline – suffer from dilapidated public facilities, fire safety hazards, and frequent neighborhood disputes, making them a persistent and difficult issue at the core of urban and community safety.

“Relying solely on government support or on community associations’ linear assistance alone will not fully resolve the complex issues of building management,” Chan said, putting forward three specific recommendations.

According to him, these include introducing online identification and e-voting to boost participation and approval rates for general meeting resolutions through technological means; encouraging government collaboration with community associations to group adjacent buildings into a grid management network, reducing per-household costs through collective tendering.

He also proposed establishing a cross-departmental task force to proactively inspect and clear public walls and underground drainage networks in areas with dense clusters of buildings over 50 years old, while exploring collaboration with community associations to build a “community building development support network” offering one-stop legal and technical assistance to vulnerable residents.