Urban redevelopment cannot be just an impulse as it involves different stateholders. If we want to investigate how can government balance their interests, we should first consider their concerns respectively including: residents, owner of shop, property developer, conservators, environmental groups. To start with, residents must be the first victim. For those old residents of the area, they suffer the most. Lived with many familiar neighbour for years, the residents have built relationship each other. If the district has to redevelopment, they have to move and re-adapt a new environment. It may not be a big influence to youth residents but for the elderly, they will be difficult to meet new neighbour. Therefore, to deal with, the government should give a huge compensation to residents and state the pros of urban redevelopment to public. As the rent is increasing rapidly and the elderly have already lacked working ability, a reasonable compensation is necessary for them. Besides, many residents do not know the reason of redevelopment and they blame the government. However, the buildings of old town are disrepaired with age and they are dangerous. In 2010, collapse of tenements occured in Hung Hom because of poor repair. Urban redevelopment is its solution but residents think that the government develop their district just for money. Therefore, explaining to them and giving them reasonable compensation can reduce their conflicts. Moreover, many old towns are in mixed land use. Instead of residents, owners of small shops are affected. To protect the interest of them, compensation is not the only measure. I recommend that the government should provide a place with similar rent for the shop owner to redevelop their shops. I know that it may not completely solve the concern of shop owners but there is never a perfect plan. I agree that the government should focus more on needs of community than personal interest. Furthermore, for the property developers, I cannot find any concerns of them actually. If we focus on the economic profit, they must be the winner. Tsuen Wan is one of the redeveloping district and the property price of private estate has rosen to $6000 per square feet. How can most of the citizens pay such high rent? The government always redevelop old town with the property developer’s cooperation. They can get a considerable profit after the redevelopment. Therefore, I recommend that the government should cooperate with them before consultation and knowing what will the developers do after redevelopment. If the developers only set up big shopping malls or private estate, the government should not work with them for the public interest. Addtionally, catering for the conservators, the government should consider to cooperate with developers who will preserve some of the traditional features of the district. As the most concern of conservators is cultural inheritance. Like the “five streets” in Mong Kok (Flower Market Road, Tung Choi Street, Sai Yee Street, Fa Yuen Street and Nelson Street), the government put nearly $1000 millions to revitalize them as well as improve the pedestrian pathway. Therefore, the dangerous can be reduce while the features are still preserved. Finally, for the green groups, the government can adopt the energy-saving and pollution control, like while the district is redeveloped, the government can construct eco-buildings and improve public transport services. The most serious pollution of Hong Kong now is air pollution. If the mass transport improve, more people are willing to take public transport rather than drive in private car. Therefore, less waste gases are released. Besides, the government can set up some green area, like park or greenbelt to relieve the density of buildings. The government should not only focus on profit while doing urban redevelopment and he should have detailed conference with different stakeholders before action so that they will have fewer conflicts because of urban redevelopment. SID:4452
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 03:28:51 +0000
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