Private Recreational Leases (PRLs) and the New Requirements – a Summary

WORDS: LUCY SUTRO, VICE COMMODORE

A. BACKGROUND

In March 2018 the government published a report ‘Review on Policy of Private Recreational Leases’ and in February 2019 the Home Affairs Bureau (HAB) issued their report and findings which made a number of recommendations; in the main concentrating on the PRLs’ need to open up their facilities to the public. This opening up will come into effect for most PRLs from 2027 although there are a small number of sites where new leases are being issued where the opening up requirements take place now. We occupy two of those sites.

The new criteria

Towards the end of 2019 HAB gave the Club a draft of the new criteria which all PRLs will need to fulfil. Each RHKYC site is regarded by HAB as a stand-alone site and so these criteria will apply to each of them.

In summary the new criteria are: 1. Whether the facilities provided at the PRL help alleviate pressure on public sports facilities in the district concerned. 2. Whether the site provides sports facilities that are not widely available in public venues.

View of marina which is part of the lot

3. The extent to which the facilities are opened up to outside bodies and members of the public. 4. Utilisation of the facilities by outside bodies and members of the public. 5. Providing facilities to National Sporting Associations (NSAs) to promote sports in the community 6. Whether the site hosts leagues competitions organised by NSAs. 7. Whether the site hosts or supports the hosting of local/international sports competitions 8. Other contributions towards sports development.

Within each of these sections there are points awarded for the level of success the PRL has achieved. The implication is that if a PRL does not meet all the criteria or does not achieve a satisfactory score, then the lease will not be renewed.

This article will not go into the detail of the proposed scoring system; there are still ongoing conversations with HAB about many of these details.

New leases

The Club has two leases which are in the process of being renewed: Shelter Cove, where the original lease expired in 2014 and the Club has been operating since then on a series of hold over letters from the Lands Department extending our permission to occupy, and Middle Island, where the lease expired in 2021 and the Club is also operating on a hold over letter. The Kellett Island lease runs to 2057 and so activities on this site are not included in this note.

We have now seen the first draft of wording to be included in the Middle Island and Shelter Cove leases and the two main requirements for opening up (items 3 and 5 in the criteria set out above) will be incorporated into any new lease issued. In addition, there is a requirement for the Club to submit a plan showing how it intends to fulfill the opening up conditions, and this plan will need to be approved by the Secretary for Home Affairs before any new lease is granted.

The draft opening up plan for Shelter Cove was submitted to HAB in November 2021 and the intention is that the document for Middle Island will be completed in the next few weeks.

The two new leases which are in the process of being renewed will probably run to 2027; thereafter all new leases will be issued for a maximum term of 15 years before requiring further renewal.

Our sporting facilities

Historically HAB have struggled with the fact that we do not conduct our sport on our sites. Their scoring systems are set up to look at landbased sports; tennis, football etc where you can easily assess the usage.

In August 2021 HAB clarified that they will count boat storage as our sporting facility. This will be any boat on the hardstanding, in a rack on the hardstanding, on a pontoon and (for Shelter Cove) the Marina. They also made it clear that all boats are treated equally – so an Optimist or canoe stored in a rack counts as one boat as does a 50-foot boat on the Marina.

The moorings do not form part of our sporting facilities as they are not on our leased site.

In addition, at Kellett there are other sporting facilities (swimming pool, squash courts, snooker table etc) which will not be addressed in this article.

Eligible Outside Bodies (“EOB”)

When HAB refer to outside bodies they are referring to EOBs. There are several definitions of EOBs across the various HAB reports on the subject of PRLs but they are broadly either a National Sporting Authority (“NSA”) (eg Hong Kong Sailing Federation) or a sport organisations affiliated to NSAs, District Sports Associations, the Hong Kong Schools Sports Federation, the New Territories Regional Sports Association and sports organisations supported by government departments.

In August 2021 HAB clarified some definitions which included the fact that Class boats will not count as being EOB unless the boats are owned by the class association (which needs to be a member of HKSF).

Provide storage and remove Kellett IV to enable more boat storage of RIBs and paddle boats B. SHELTER COVE AND THE NEW PRL REQUIREMENTS

The sporting facilities at Shelter Cove are:

• The hardstanding. • The Marina. • The pontoons.

Shelter Cove is also home to boats on the Club’s 123 moorings. These moorings are not regarded as part of our sporting facilities as they do not form part of the lease.

1. The extent to which the facilities are opened up to outside bodies

and members of the public

The base requirement here is that 30% of the opening up hours of the facility are made available to EOBs and/or members of the public. In practice that means that 30% of the boats stored on the site need to either belong to an EOB or be used for training courses that members of the public can enroll on. The training courses need to be “sports programmes jointly organised with NSAs for public enrolment” – hence the need for ensuring that all of our sports have NSAs.

One of the main issues at Shelter Cove is lack of space. The lease requires us to have 75 car parking spaces so we can’t expand the boat park into the car park; and besides the car park is already having capacity issues. We have therefore had to think about small craft which can be stored on the pontoons or along the back of the hardstanding. We also need to be mindful of the fact that all craft will need to be made safe during any typhoon, so spaces with tie downs must also be considered.

Following extensive discussions involving the Sailing and Rowing offices, the respective Club officers responsible for the sports, the Marine office and senior Club management a plan to increase the number of craft – predominantly rowing and paddling craft – to be stored at Shelter Cove was approved by the General Committee in November 2021.

RowCom have suggested an additional 44 craft be established at Shelter Cove include stand up paddle boards, outrigger canoes, small Dragon boats, coastal rowing boats and kayaks. There will also be racking space for 12 dinghies in the Hardstanding Rack. With these new craft we will have 57 craft (44% of the total craft stored at Shelter Cove) which will be used either for training programmes that members of the public can enroll on or for booking by EOBS.

In order to make space for these new craft there will need to be some rearrangement of boat storage at Shelter Cove including:

1. Remove any unused items/rubbish from the site 2. Removing the existing unused member owned craft currently stored in boat racks in order to make space for the Club owned boats to be used for training programmes. 3. Creating space and storage onshore for items currently stored on Kellett VI – mainly sails and marine equipment/marine office.

This is being looked at by the MI&SC Dev Working Group and the current thought is to apply for approval of containers on a temporary basis. 4. Remove Kellett VI. 5. Creating pontoon racks for items to be stored on pontoons 6. Where necessary replacing existing racks to create storage for the new craft.

Timing wise we need to establish these craft and start the training programmes (see below) in 2022. We indicated that it could take us two to three years to get fully up to speed on the various opening up requirements at Shelter Cove.

2. Providing facilities to National Sporting Associations (NSAs) to

promote sports in the community

The requirement is for a minimum 240 hours a month of ‘sports programmes jointly organised with NSAs for public enrolment’.

Simply put, they want us to run sailing, rowing or paddling training.

More racks need to be installed for rowing and paddling boats

Existing racks need to be cleared of unused boats

HAB have indicated in the draft scoring system that they will give maximum points for 720 hours. There is no allowance for small sites, inadequate facilities and difficult access; all of which are issues at Shelter Cove. For Shelter Cove we will be following a multi-pronged approach:

a. Start to run paddling and rowing training at Shelter Cove

With the arrival of the new craft itemised in the opening up section above, the rowing and paddling section intend to start to run a number of training programmes and courses.

b. Ensure that non-member participation in class racing counts

We need to ‘count’ the non-members who are taking part in regular class racing. The issue here will be how to demonstrate that a member of the public can enroll to join class racing.

In our submission to HAB we included an activity called

“Race Experience” which will cover this; the next step is

Hardstand which needs to be reorganised and include storage

to work out how to ‘count’ these non-members who are racing. The idea of a “Crew Card” for non-members is being investigated, along with ideas on how to capture the data showing non-member attendance.

c. Enter into an arrangement with an external sail

training provider

One area which was investigated was the idea of looking to external training providers to run courses for the Club, rather than having to build everything ourselves. The intention is for the

Club to enter into an agreement with a keelboat training centre which runs various RYA courses including the Start Yachting course, the Competent Crew course and the Day Skipper course. GenCom has approved this idea and an agreement with an appropriate training company is in the process of being completed. d. Utilise the cruising and racing yachts on the marina and on

the moorings

It would not be difficult to organise cruising events which the cruisers on moorings could join. We could add another start to the normal class racing or they could self start, so there should be minimal additional resources required.

If this could be done, then it would be a useful addition to the records of non-member usage for “Race Experience” or “Cruising Experience”.

In the opening up scheme for Shelter Cove submitted at the end of 2021 we set out the activities we currently anticipate running out of Shelter Cove. We have a couple of years to get up and running with all of these activities but by the time the lease comes up for renewal in 2027 we must be achieving all of these activity hours.

C. MIDDLE ISLAND AND THE NEW PRL REQUIREMENTS

With the volume of sailing, rowing and paddling training being run out of Middle Island we do not face the issues that we do at Shelter Cove. However, the lease itself is more complicated. The Club premises at Middle Island occupies several leases. The ‘old’ hardstanding and the Clubhouse are on a PRL lease; everything else (the ‘new’ hardstanding and slipway and the land to the east of the Club house to the far side of the rowing shed) are on series of short term tenancies. HAB are not sure how they want us to report our activity across these various sites. The sporting facilities for PRL purposes at Middle Island are: • The ‘old’ hardstanding. Currently home to 72 dinghies; 59 of which are used for Sail Training • The pontoons. In normal times these are used to tie up the class boats every weekend when they are racing, and for ad hoc usage for the boats on moorings. There are also a number of Club moorings, but these are not part of the lease area. Taking the opening up requirements in the same order as with Shelter Cove: 1. The extent to which the facilities are opened up to outside bodies

and members of the public

As of December 2021 the data for Middle Island was as follows:

LOCATION TYPE OF CRAFT TOTAL BOAT STORAGE SPACES AVAILABLE

Rowing shed and hardstanding Rowing/paddling

‘New’ hardstanding Sailing Rowing/paddling Keelboats 102 0 10 23

‘Old’ hardstanding

Dinghies/kayaks Rowing/paddling Dinghies Total % craft used for training (whole site) % craft used for training (PRL site only) 102 0 72 309

TOTAL USED FOR TRAINING

55 0 10 3 26 0 59 153 49.51 81.94 Using any criteria we are comfortably ahead of the requirement that 30% of our ‘sporting facilities’ are used for sports training that members of the public can enroll on.

2. Providing facilities to National Sporting Associations (NSAs) to

promote sports in the community

We are still collecting data for the current activities taking place at Middle Island but are well over even the maximum requirements. Data collected to date for 2021 shows the following:

Sailing courses

Rowing and paddling courses

Total

TOTAL COURSE HOURS P.A.

55,185

13,210

ESTIMATED % OF NON-MEMBERS

39.2

66.7

TOTAL NON-MEMBER HOURS P.A.

21,659

8,805

30,464

Which is just over 2,500 hours a month.

Note: The figures above do not include the Dragon Boat, Outrigger Canoe and Rowing Development courses.

D. THE AUDIT PROCESS

The final step in this whole process will be to build the booking systems for member of the public to use and also the reporting mechanism to enable us to demonstrate to HAB that we have indeed fulfilled the opening up requirements. For the former there are systems in place for most of the sailing, rowing and paddling training courses, but not necessarily for the other activities. For the latter we have no systems in place and the process of collecting information requires a lot of manual labour. This is now the part of the project which requires our next efforts.