The Government is amending the law to increase the number of toilets in ladies' restrooms in public places including shopping arcades, department stores and cinemas.
Secretary for Development Paul Chan told legislators today that the Government has proposed raising the ratio for assessing the numbers of male and female users in those premises from 1:1 to 1:1.5 to enhance the standards of provision of female sanitary fitments.
A two-stage approach has been adopted to amend the regulations. During the first stage, amendments on enhancing the provision of female sanitary fitments will be handled. Other amendments will be dealt with at the second stage.
The enhanced standards under the amendment regulations will apply to buildings constructed after the legislative amendments come into effect.
For an early implementation of the enhanced standards, the Buildings Department incorporated the new standards in the Practice Notes for Authorised Persons, Registered Structural Engineers & Registered Geotechnical Engineers in 2012, to provide guidelines to the building industry.
Since then, the Architectural Services Department has progressively increased the provision of female sanitary fitments in accordance with the enhanced standards in its new projects.
When carrying out major renovation for the maintenance of existing government buildings, the Architectural Services Department will also increase the provision of female sanitary fitments according to the practice notes where technical and site conditions permit.
