Comments on the Report on "Urban Renewal in Hong Kong"
November 1996
General comments
We welcome the report "Urban Renewal in Hong Kong" and support the speeding up
of urban renewal. To maintain its position as a modern, world class service economy, Hong
Kong needs to constantly maintain its urban landscape as well as upgrade the quality of
life of the urban inhabitants.
Although we support a substantial role for public bodies like the Land Development
Corporation and the Housing Society in implementing measures for urban renewal, our view
is that the main drive for urban renewal should remain with the private sector, in line
with the fundamentally market- and private sector- driven nature of the Hong Kong economy.
In this context, we note that some of the proposals in the present report contain some
form of government subsidy. We recognise that there is often an element of public interest
in urban renewal thus warranting government subsidy. Nonetheless we would recommend that
these proposals should be carefully studied before being fully implemented.
As a general rule, we feel that the private sector should be encouraged to play a major
part in urban renewal, while the LDC should deal with the particularly difficult cases.
Even so, the LDC should always be guided by a commercially prudent approach.
Specific comments
Land use planning
In considering land use, Planning Department may sometimes be overly
conservative in interpreting the "planning intention" of statutory outline
zoning plans. In the urban context, we submit that there should be more flexibility in
interpreting the planning intention and deciding site-specific land uses, especially of
former industrial areas such as Tai Kok Tsui, Hunghom and To Kwa Wan. There should also be
more speed in processing rezoning or zoning amendment applications.
Negotiation and resumption
In negotiating for urban renewal, the priority should always be to encourage
owners participation, through persuading individual building owners to join forces for
re-development.
The process of voluntary negotiation should be speeded up. The current process of
offering in batches may be too rigid as it leaves little room for negotiations in between.
There should also be more flexibility in the percentage for ex-gratia payment especially
for shops and whole blocks.
One of the key impediments to urban renewal has been the slow process in resumption of
sites. We understand the community's sentiment towards compulsory resumption, and we agree
that it is proper to vest the ultimate power for resumption with the Executive Council.
Notwithstanding this, the economic and social costs arising from slow and inefficient
resumption should not be overlooked. There should be room for speeding up the process of
resumption, for example, by enabling the Urban Renewal Authority to submit to ExCo direct
without going through government. The government proposal of "compulsory disposal of
whole lot initiated by the majority" is worth serious consideration. The scope of the
existing Partition Ordinance (Cap 352) may be enlarged/re-enacted so as to allow the
majority owners to apply for a sale of the land. This is particularly important to the
urban renewal process in those cases of absentee landowners, disputed titles and the last
owner syndrome.
Link projects
The "link project" concept is an interesting proposal and we agree
that it is worth examining further. In practice, however, we note that the commercially
viable part of the link project may involve the private treaty grant of sites that would
normally comprise part of the government's land sales programmes and as such the element
of subsidy and the amount of money involved could be considerable. In view of this, we
urge that it should be pursued carefully through appropriately monitored pilot schemes.
Rehabilitation fund
Another measure which involves an element of subsidy is that of the
rehabilitation fund. We are not certain how practical the fund is in encouraging
maintenance and upgrading of old buildings by their owners. The Buildings Department plans
to implement proposals to make compulsory the regular inspection of buildings by owners as
well as the maintenance of slopes near buildings because owners will not undertake such
inspections and upkeep of their own volition. Hence perhaps equally or more important is
the basic basic task of educating the public on the importance of maintenance and the
responsibilities associated with property ownership.
Urban Renewal Authority
In the longer term, we support the proposal to transform the LDC into an
Urban Renewal Authority.
