Out with the old
The modernisation-versus-preservation debate has cast doubt on the role of the Urban Renewal Authority
26 March 2007
South China Morning Post
Battle lines are being drawn across some of the city's fading precincts. Opposed to the growing presence of the Urban Renewal Authority, distinctive communities in older areas such as Wan Chai, Central, Mong Kok and Sham Shui Po are finding themselves at odds with the push for modernisation being spearheaded by the authority's managing director, Billy Lam Chun-lun.
The authority's plans in Wan Chai include tearing down Lee Tung Street, nicknamed Wedding Card Street, and the Bauhaus-style Wan Chai Market. The authority refused Wedding Card Street landlords' demand to stay. It also rejected a proposal by Chinese Estate Holdings to scrap plans to demolish the market building if the authority - which is its joint-venture partner in the redevelopment - offered the developer another parcel of land.
In Central, the authority plans to pull down part of the 140-year-old outdoor market in Peel, Graham and Gage streets to make way for hotels, offices and residential towers, and an old shop street. Central and Western District Councillors have complained that if they confront the authority over the redevelopment, they would be accused of obstructing residents eager to move out.
A few blocks away in Staunton Street, residents are still waiting for the authority to buy them out. A redevelopment plan there was put on hold for two years because the authority's plan clashed with a Henderson Land redevelopment project. The property giant took the Town Planning Board to court on the grounds that the board was biased towards the authority's interests.
Across the harbour, the authority's determination to redevelop part of Sai Yee, Nelson and Fa Yuen streets in Mong Kok, known as Sneaker Street for its profusion of sports shoe shops, is also highly controversial. The project divided a community: two pressure groups were formed to push the opposing causes - renovation versus redevelopment - placing the street's business community, who occupies the ground floor, at odds with the residents who live on upper floors.
Shop owners are teaming up with architecture students and professionals to prepare a counter proposal, in which they will suggest that the authority buys the properties of those who want to move out, before renovating the buildings and turning the regenerated ones into commercial properties.
Further west in Sham Shui Po, the authority has nine redevelopment projects in the pipeline. According to social workers, the authority is wrangling with 40 landlords in four projects. Another one, the Kweilin Street redevelopment, has the potential to erupt into another heritage row after the authority has repeatedly refused to renovate and preserve an old building which in the 1950s housed the residence and classrooms of neo-Confucianism.
Public outcry against the demolition of the Peel, Graham and Gage streets is evidence of the unpopularity of the authority. Since news emerged that the body plans to demolish part of the outdoor market which runs through the area, the South China Morning Post has received an influx of letters and e-mails expressing dismay at the plan. Many outraged readers have also called the Post to voice their disgruntlement.
Such a backlash illustrates mounting public concern over the apparent destruction of the city's heritage and the strategy adopted by the Urban Renewal Authority.
When Wan Chai district council chairwoman Ada Wong Ying-kay took up the campaign to save Wedding Card Street in late 2003, she was backed by shopkeepers, residents, social workers, architects, surveyors and town planners who disputed the authority's redevelopment strategy.
The Wedding Card Street campaign represented a break-through in the evolution of the city's urban renewal. In the past, the struggle was largely confined to the authority and the individuals affected, with arguments often centring on the amount of compensation being offered and the branding of the unco-operative as "greedy".
Ms Wong and her allies were criticised as a small group of well-off elites and professionals who romanticised the area's dilapidated streets and tired-looking buildings despite the appalling conditions.
But the recent backlash expressed by Post readers underlines the growing public discontent at the authority's redevelopment model, one that involves buying run-down properties in prime districts, demolishing the buildings, and then selling the projects to developers to construct upmarket residential blocks, office towers, shopping centres and hotels. In Wedding Card Street and the Central outdoor market area, the authority plans replica buildings to replace genuine tenement houses.
Mr Lam defends the redevelopment model as essential for Hong Kong. He has always said the most controversial projects were left to the authority by its predecessor, the Land Development Corporation. "The redevelopment plans were announced in 1998," he said. "People living in the redevelopment zones expect us to buy their properties so they can move somewhere else. It is our duty to meet their expectations."
Mr Lam also argued that as the government had invested only HK$10 billion in the authority, it had to make profits in redevelopments so as to finance other, non-profit-making, activities such as heritage conservation and removing old buildings. Mr Lam said that not every redevelopment project made a profit. He expects that redeveloping Kwun Tong will end up being a money-losing project. Its joint venture with Sino Land in Tsuen Wan - Vision City - also is likely to lose money.
He said the authority had studied the law and found they risked facing legal action if they did not pull down old buildings after purchase. "Redevelopment has an implication of pulling down and rebuilding," he added.
But critics of the strategy brushed aside his arguments. Ms Wong said the authority should reconsider whether it should continue to maximise profits from redevelopment projects or play the role of a middle man for property developers.
"It is a government agent, stressing people-oriented. It shouldn't bother whether its projects are going to make a profit," she said. "As a matter of fact, it doesn't have to; developers are happy to buy old buildings in prime areas and redevelop themselves. They identify sites with potential and purchase gradually. The process, although slower, is smooth."
Earlier this month, mid-tier developer K Wah International paid millions in an auction to buy the remaining units at Hang Hin Mansion in Mid-Levels. The firm already owned 92 per cent of the complex before the auction. Private redevelopments are active, but there are hardly any reports of residents being angry with the redevelopments.
Ms Wong said the reason for the low rate of disputes lay with the laws backing up the authority. Once a cluster of streets and buildings became redevelopment zones, affected landlords could only negotiate on the amount of compensation, with a price cap equal to a seven-year-old property in the same district. Landlords cannot bargain on whether they can stay.
Ms Wong's colleague at the district council, Maryann King Pui-wai, said the Belcher's in Kennedy Town was a classic example of the different treatment landlords received from private redevelopments compared with those of the authority.
Ms King said the upmarket residential development was owned by Shun Tak Holdings and Sun Hung Kai Properties. The plot used to be a civil servants' co-operative housing estate.
She said the consortium rebuilt the estate; each family, in return, received millions of cash compensation and a same-sized flat in the Belcher's. If the original flat was bigger than a standard-sized unit in the Belcher's, then the firm compensated the family for the difference. The families could either sell it back to the developers for extra cash, or buy more floor space and own two flats in the new development. Both sides agreed on a price before they signed the contract, so the families were obliged to buy at the agreed price regardless of the property market's fluctuations.
Developers tend to pay better than the authority because they do not have the backup of the Land Resumption Ordinance. Private redevelopments have to acquire at least 90 per cent of the properties to evoke an auction to purchase the rest.
The ordinance is a major weapon against unco-operative landlords. It is a normal procedure, under the ordinance, to take landlords to court if they refuse to move out. The Lands Department announced in August 2005 that Wedding Card Street would become government land in three months. The announcement was made when 80 per cent of the street's property rights were in the authority's hands.
In March 2004, two tenants in Sham Shui Po were forcibly removed from their shops in Fuk Wing Street after the court ordered their removal under the Lands Resumption Ordinance.
In December last year, two brothers living in Shau Kei Wan were removed from the home they inherited from their mother. They held a picture of her when court officials removed them. The authority teamed with the Housing Society to redevelop the area.
Another major criticism of the authority is that it has the power to take over streets, including those leading to its redevelopment plot, which means it can create a bigger site area. Hence the authority's redevelopment projects tend to be larger than those of developers, given that they have the same plot ratio. One example is the Staunton Street redevelopment. In theory, the Henderson Land proportion has a higher development density. But as the property giant cannot build on streets the authority has a bigger site area.
Patsy Cheng Man-wah, of sustainable development advocacy group See Network, said the resulting density would be similar to that of Henderson Land.
A property market source said demolition should be the last resort for the authority. "I don't see any reason why they cannot renovate the tenement buildings," the source said. "It will improve the living conditions without making many disturbances to the neighbourhood."
