Hundreds of pre-sale buyers of Pearl Horizon flats staged a protest march on Sunday from Areia Preta district to the Central People’s Government Liaison Office in Zape, urging the office to press the local government and the ill-fated residential project’s developer Polytec to hold “three-party talks” with them.
Pearl Horizon Condominium Owners United Association President Kou Meng Pok said to the local media that almost 1,000 buyers participated in the protest. The Public Security Police (PSP) said in a statement last night that the protest drew about 350 participants and that 80 PSP officers were deployed to maintain order.
Before submitting their petition, which was addressed to Liaison Office Director Li Gang, Kou spoke to his fellow pre-sale flats buyers and reporters in the garden. “We eagerly hope the Central People’s Government Liaison Office will take the initiative to press the [Macau] Special Administrative Region government and developer Polytec to hold three-party talks with the buyers,” Kou said.
He also said he hoped the three sides will draw up a plan during the talks to safeguard the buyers’ interests after the ongoing lawsuits involving Polytec and the government are over. “We entreat Director Li Gang to report to the central government about Macau’s Pearl Horizon incident, so that the central government can help to properly resolve the incident as soon as possible,” Kou said.
The flat owners have held a string of protests and street rallies over the past few months to put pressure on the government and Polytec. They are demanding to move into their flats in 2018 – as promised by the project’s developer.
The Pearl Horizon project site’s provisional land concession granted to Polytec expired on December 26. The government gazetted the expiration of the concession in January. The project has been mothballed since December.
Blaming bureaucratic red tape for the project’s long delay, the developer has filed several lawsuits to challenge the official decision to reclaim the construction site. A total of 3,020 Pearl Horizon fiats have been pre-sold, according to the government.
(Macau News / The Macau Post Daily)
