Previous Posts in this Series:
In many ways, Greenvale Village mirrors Peninsula Village. Both villages cover an extensive area, and have a large number of residential units. Both villages were developed in phases, with several sub-sub-DMCs. And in both villages, Hong Kong Resort Company Limited (HKR) ran out of Residential Development Undivided Shares to allocate to the development.
However, there the similarity ends. Unlike Peninsula Village, development continued at Greenvale even though HKR had no Residential Development Undivided Shares to assign to owners upon sale of the flats.
A total of 10,000 Residential Development Undivided Shares were allocated to Greenvale Village in the Sub-DMC, of which 3,252 undivided shares were sub-allocated to Greenery, Greenburg and Greenfield courts, and 2,166 to Greenish, Greenland and Greendale courts. That left 4,582 undivided shares for the remaining three towers, Greenwood, Greenmont and Greenbelt (Greenvale 7C2b).
Using the formula from the DMC to allocate Management Units (MU) to individual residential units, HKR allocated a total of 4,896 MU to the final three towers at Greenvale.
The Legal Advisory and Conveyancing Office (LACO) under Lands Department will normally require that MU and undivided shares are allocated to units on a 1:1 basis. With only 4,582 Residential Development Undivided Shares in hand, HKR therefore had insufficient shares to sub-allocate to all units. The solution was to sub-allocate one less Residential Development Undivided Share to each unit than the number of MU allocated to that unit, as may be seen from the Schedule from the Greenvale 7C2b Sub-Sub-DMC.
As there are 576 Residential Units at Greenvale 7C2b, HKR thus saved 576 Residential Development Undivided Shares. This allowed HKR to paper over the shortfall of 314 undivided shares at Greenvale 7C2b, and still retain 262 Residential Development Undivided Shares at Greenvale Village for future use.
As may be seen from the village plan, an extensive area to the sea side of Discovery Bay Road lies within Greenvale Village. With only 262 Residential Development Undivided Shares remaining in Greenvale Village, owners had every right to expect that — similar to Peninsula Garden — this area would largely remain as open space for the enjoyment of the village. This view would have been reinforced by the extant Master Plan, MP 5.6, which showed the entire area beyond Greenvale as “Public Recreation”.
Alas, it was not to be.
Master Plan 6.0E1 converted the entire area at Discovery Bay North to Housing and Residents’ Club use (Area N1 on MP 6.0E1). Siena 1 was developed first, on the valley floor. And then came Siena 2, on the slope leading up to Discovery Bay Road.
But, Siena 2 reveals a rather strange anomaly. Siena 2 is divided into 2a and 2b, with 2a flanked by 2b on both sides – much like East and West Pakistan upon partition of India in 1947.
Indeed, little Siena 2a is really part of Greenvale Village, as is recognised at Section I of the Siena 2a Sub-Sub-DMC. A total of 1,201 MU and 1,201 undivided shares were allocated to Siena 2a in the Sub-Sub-DMC, of which 1,167 were sub-allocated to Residential Units.
How was that possible, you ask? After all, there were only 262 Residential Development Undivided Shares remaining in Greenvale.
I wondered about that too, and sought an explanation from LACO. Completely unaware of the requirements of the share regime under the DMC, LACO responded that the developer’s legal advisors, Messrs. Kao, Lee & Yip, had affirmed that the shortfall in shares was made up through the re-allocation of 905 shares from the 9,000 shares allotted to the “Village Retained Areas”.
Here is the share regime from the DMC. Readers will note from Clause 1 that only Residential Development Undivided Shares or Reserve Undivided Shares may be sub-allocated to the Residential Development. Residential Development is defined in the DMC as follows:
All the buildings erected or to be erected on the Lot intended for residential use in accordance with the Master Plans.
Under no circumstances may Village Retained Area Undivided Shares be sub-allocated instead.
Thus, not only did Greenvale owners lose their “Peninsula Garden”, Siena 2a owners were saddled with Village Retained Area Undivided Shares that do not carry with them any rights to own a residential unit on the Lot. Furthermore, the shares of all other property owners in DB have been diluted through the building of residential units without sufficient Residential Development Undivided Shares allocated to these developments.
Next: A Worrisome Development