Press Releases
SFH on review of columbarium policy
Following is the transcript of remarks (English portion) made by the
Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, at a media stand-up session
after attending a meeting of the Legislative Council's Panel on Food Safety
and Environmental Hygiene today (July 6):
Reporter: Would you explain your proposals on the management fees and the
selection of the 12 proposed sites for development of columbarium
facilities? If the existing operators of the illegal columbaria will not be
given licences in the future, what will happen to the customers who are
using these sites?
Secretary for Food and Health: First of all, we look at these 12 sites in
altogether seven districts. They will be able to supply a certain number of
niches for future development. Every time we have such a proposal, we will
face a lot of objections and sometimes criticisms from different districts.
As this is a policy now being established, that every district should have
some responsibility in housing some of those facilities, I hope that we will
have a consensus among our community that this should be done. The sites to
be chosen are not very close to any residential area but are actually quite
close to some of the existing cemeteries. So this is not something that is
out of the blue. This is something that we might have to consider.
The second question is on management fees. It is regarding our proposal and
our expected discussion on whether the columbaria should be given a
so-called unlimited tenure regarding occupancy. So far, every time we offer
our public niches, they are given to the consumers on a permanent basis. But
if you look at some of the cemeteries in both Hong Kong as well as overseas,
in particular urban areas, many of them would not be cared for after 20 or
30 years, or perhaps two or three generations. We are of the opinion that we
need to have some consensus among our public whether we should have a
time-limited arrangement for our public niches in future. This is a
controversial thing but I think it is worth discussing.
For the third question regarding the existing illegal operators, as far as I
know, there are individual land lease conditions and also zoning
requirements for each of the establishments. According to their situation,
they can either apply for regularisation at the moment, or if they cannot
comply with any of those conditions, I think that they cannot operate in
future. This is very clear.
Reporter: Would the customers of these illegal sites have to move the
cremains themselves?
Secretary for Food and Health: If there is a necessity to do so, I think
they have to look after their ancestors' ashes if their existing niches are
not placed in a future licensed columbarium.
(Please also refer to the
Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Issued at HKT 18:43
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