There are always two sides to one issue, and in this case, there are basically two different stakeholders that are involved in the urban redevelopment – the ones who opposed to it, mostly due to environment problems, missing the history behind the specific place or even because they dislike the method of redevelopment, and the ones who encourage it as it brings in more tourists and business. So how should the government deal with these two sides? Let’s take Lee Tung Street as an example first to look into how the government coped with the different opinions. As we all learnt from the previous lectures, Lee Tung Street, aka the ‘Wedding Card Street’, was announced to be redeveloped by the URA during 2003, including as well the redevelopment of McGregor Street. It was expected to be demolished starting in December 2007, and to be redeveloped as a ‘Wedding City’. This is heavily opposed by the H15 Concern Group, a group of original residents and tenants of Lee Tung Street, who believe if the street could not be saved, should at least considered to be redeveloped according to their ‘Dumbbell Proposal’, which was suggested by one of their architect Christopher Law, by preserving the six-storied tong lau in the middle of the original street. Unfortunately, even after this proposal and days of protests, the government and URA have not listened and continued to demolish the street, reopening it into ‘Avenue Lane’ in June 2013. This is however strongly criticized and mocked by many Internet users, and till now there are still many comments and debate on whether the government had did the right thing on this issue. Therefore, I would like to state out my views on how they should have done on this matter. For the stakeholders that agree on urban developments, who are usually the private developers, the government should bring on some regulations on them. It is no surprise that the developers would bring up the prices when they get a new property to sell, especially in Hong Kong lands, which is most infamous for its skyrocketing land prices. In their opinion, all they care about is basically the most profit they can get, therefore the idea of ‘flat for flat, shop for shop’ has no appeal at all for them at all. What the government should do is to set price ranges correspondence to different lands, so that even after redevelopment, developers should not exceed the price limit. However the relationship between the government and the developers should be more distinctive. As we’ve seen news before about URA officials committing fraud by associating with developer. The most famous one would be the case in 2005, which the URA president Russel Hui defraud the Collection of Stamp Revenue with about $490000 less. Even though regulations are much stricter now, it is still questionable whether this may happen again. Therefore internal regulations are as important as that of regulating developers. As for the stakeholders that oppose to the developments, who mostly are the original residents who live in that particular area, the government should be able to really consider their point of view and proposal. Such as the case about the Lee Tung Street, the H15 group has given out a great proposal that not only can cooperate with their original idea, but also keep the residents group memory by saving one of their significant structure. In fact government always argues that they have organized so call ‘consultation’ before redevelopment. Yet all those opinions and voices ended up not being heard, and the government continue to do it’s own way. The main problem is government gives out a lot of ‘empty claims’, they should stop giving residents false expectations. One thing that they could do, is to preserve some parts of the old street to ease the heated controversy between both parties. For example the relocation of Murray House to Stanley, this is something that the government could do to preserve the memories and history of Hong Kong people. In conclusion, I think we all agree that urban redevelopment is a must to maintain Hong Kong’s competitiveness as one of the most successful economic entity. Yet the government should also consider the important of cultural heritage and citizens’ living, which are also key elements to allow Hong Kong maintain it’s leader role. Striking a balance is a must. (SID: 1550)
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 09:55:21 +0000
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