Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn on Thursday said details of the Urban Renewal Authority's enhanced Smart Tender platform would be announced next month in the run-up to its introduction by the end of the year.

Following the Wang Fuk Court inferno in which 168 people were killed, authorities announced plans to beef up the platform as part of a wider push to lower the risks of bid-rigging.

The platform will feature a list of renovation and construction contractors that have been more stringently vetted while the authority will be tasked with conducting tender invitations and assessments.

Linn said the Buildings Department had been asked to be more flexible with homeowners under orders to carry out maintenance work on their buildings ahead of the platform's launch.

"For the owners' corporations that haven't started the work, I have asked the department not to hurry them as much as possible and give them room to wait for this strengthened Smart Tender platform," she said in an interview with RTHK.

"But of course in cases where it's dangerous to delay the work, say for example where concrete on a building's exterior walls is falling off, then the Buildings Department has to figure out other ways to help the owners and handle the problems first."

Linn added that officials are looking to complete in around a year the review of Operation Building Bright 2.0, which subsidises homeowners who are required to carry out large-scale maintenance work on their buildings.

She said the government is considering requiring homeowners who receive the subsidies to improve their regular maintenance work so that the buildings won't have to go through large-scale renovations as quickly.

Linn also said officials would make sure that developers of the planned Aberdeen marina project – organised around what is now the area's typhoon shelter – would not simply build residential blocks and leave the mooring berths unconstructed.

The government unveiled the Aberdeen project last month, offering 200 berths and 250 residential flats.

Linn said the administration would list out clearly in the land lease that the operating consortium would not be allowed to sell the luxury flats until they delivered on the yacht and onshore facilities of the land parcel.


Edited by Tony Sabine