Several representatives of condominium owners and tenants of Chun Hung Garden in Taipa yesterday expressed strong opposition to a project to redevelop the mothballed Beijing Imperial Palace Hotel next to their residential estate, saying that the project’s planned height limit of 140 metres provisionally approved by the authorities, combined with the nearby 160-metre-high Altira Macau casino-hotel, would create a wall effect affecting residents living in the estate.
Chun Hung Garden – comprising three residential high-rises each with about 30 storeys – is located next to the ill-fated Beijing Imperial Palace Hotel and opposite Melco’s Altira Macau.
Accompanied by lawmakers-cum-unionists Ella Lei Cheng I and Leong Sun Iok, three condominium owners convened a press conference, which took place at the residential estate’s recreational area, to “resolutely” oppose the redevelopment project.
The two legislators backed the residents’ opposition to the project, saying that their concerns were “real”.
One of the owners told the press conference that the high-rise redevelopment would affect the residents’ health and quality life. She singled out possible noise and light pollution and maintained that if the project was allowed to go ahead it would also block the estate’s wind ventilation corridors, resulting in rising temperatures and worsening air pollution.
The owners of Beijing Imperial Palace Hotel in Taipa, which has been closed since 2016, plan to redevelop the hotel, according to the proposed legal development conditions for the plot on which the hotel is situated, which were published by the Lands, Public Works and Transport Bureau (DSSOPT) early this month.
The hotel originally named New Century opened in 1992 with 554 guestrooms.
The bureau has drafted the legal development conditions for the plot as the owners have applied to redevelop the hotel. The legal development conditions propose a height limit of 70 metres on area A of the plot and 140 metres on area B of the plot. Area A roughly covers the area where the existing hotel building is situated, while area B roughly covers the area in front of the existing hotel building.
After the bureau has drafted the legal development conditions for particular plots, for both public and private projects, they will be uploaded onto its website for residents to submit their opinions and suggestions. After collecting residents’ opinions and suggestions, the legal development conditions will then be discussed in a regular meeting of the Urban Planning Council (CPU) – a government-appointed consultative body tasked with advising the government on its urban planning policies.
The legal development conditions for the redevelopment project of Beijing Imperial Palace Hotel can be rejected if more than half of the members of the Urban Planning Council oppose it during an upcoming regular meeting.
The legal development conditions for the plot were put on the bureau’s website on July 3 for residents to submit opinions and suggestions until Thursday.
A car travels past the mothballed Beijing Imperial Palace Hotel in Taipa yesterday. The photo also shows the Chun Hung Garden residential estate (centre) and the Altira Macau casino-hotel (right). Courtesy: TDM
