THE STUDY

According to statutory plan(OZP) in that area, we know that the site is originally planned for the residential development, and zoning of open storage only occupies a small proportion of land in the project area.

 

1. PROLIFERATION OF TEMPORARY STRUCTURES

The warehouses, open storage yards, waste recycling workshops, vehicle repair workshops, etc. in the Yuen Long South are mostly housed in temporary structures. Especially, in the project area - Ping Shan South area, there is also a cluster of industrial operations, including concrete batching plants, in the Tong Yan San Tsuen area.

Street Section along thw San Hi Tsuen Street

 

While these uses provide job opportunities, proliferation of these uses has also led to degradation of the environment with problems such as pollution, localized flooding, traffic congestion, fire hazard and industrial/ residential interface problems. 

 

Another key issues here is the settlement of the minority group people (immigrants from South East Asia). They built their homes using the container, causing the degradation of landscape and of course, their living condition is unpleasant, hot and crowded. Yet, the low-priced settlement attracts more low-income household to live in this kind of temporary structures.

F.g. 1.0 Number of people currently live in the temporary structures in STPU 519 - Ping Shan South.

2. DEGRADED NEIGHBORHOOD

Since there is no proper management of the garbage collection point, the streets are messy without enough rubbish bins and sheltered collection station. Part of the street is unclean with mosquitoes flying around.

In addition, since there are human settlement, workshops and storage yards, they created rubbish and large-sized wastes and they just left them on the streets, which is visually unpleasant and not pedestrian-friendly.

So generally, the living environment there is degraded because it lacks management and regulation of the human activities there.

 

3. LOW CONNECTIVITY

The area is the extension of the Yuen Long urban core area; it’s not close to any rail station, with few minibus services and only one LRT station within 20 minutes walking distance. The community there greatly relies on the automobile. The accessibility here is relatively low.