Treating the Symptoms - A Critical Review of ... - Civic Exchange

Left: Graham Streetthe 1970s to indicate that that the government wished tosee comprehensive, rather than piecemeal redevelopmentin a relatively large area of several blocks. It was thoughtthat comprehensive development would resolve planningproblems such as inadequate community facilities and openspace, inadequate infrastructure, inefficient street layouts,and incompatible land uses. 147 All development within aCDA must be approved by the TPB, and in most cases theTPB will reject proposals for the small-scale redevelopmentof just one or two plots if they interfere with the overallplan.If the owners within a CDA wish to comprehensivelyredevelop, they need to come to an agreement with allthe other owners. If a developer wants to build somethingwithin a CDA, he has to buy up most of the properties in it(although he is allowed to do this in phases).While some CDAs, such as Taikoo Place, have beensuccessful, others have resulted in something akin toplanning blight as the owners were unable to come to anagreement, nor were developers able to acquire the site.This was the case in the URA’s Hanoi Road project, whichhad been zoned as a CDA since the 1970s. The owners wereunable to reach an agreement, the buildings deteriorated,and the project was eventually taken on by the LDC in theearly 1990s. 148 (This was one of the few LDC/URA projectswhere the owners shared in the profits of redevelopmentinstead of simply accepting compensation. 149 ) The Mertonand Tsuen Wan Vision City were CDAs that were originallysupposed to have been redeveloped by the Housing Society,but for various reasons that never happened. They continuedto decay for years before they were taken on by the LDCand URA. In recognition of the problem of blight, the TPBbegan in 1998 to re-evaluate CDAs and rezoned some toother uses, reducing their number from 157 to 114 between1998 and 2002. 150If not for planning blight, there may not have been a needfor the LDC or the URA to take over certain sites at all.Yet the LDC inadvertently worsened the problem in manycases. In 1998, the LDC announced a number of projectsbut never got around to implementing most of them. 25projects were inherited by the URA in 2000, and it took theURA nine more years to officially commence them all. 151In the meantime, project sites already in poor conditiondeteriorated even further. The owners saw no sense ininvesting in repairs if their properties were going to bedemolished anyway.A cursory visual inspection of buildings slated to bedemolished in Graham Street, Peel Street, and StauntonStreet found that many of them are in a very dilapidatedcondition, with bare crumbling concrete and brokenwindows. Yet similar buildings a short distance away werein noticeably better condition, and some even appeared tohave been fully refurbished by private owners.Blight should become less of a problem for future URAprojects, since projects are no longer announced yearsahead of commencement. Under current policy (see PartI), unless the URA decides to begin public consultationsin advance, the public will only find out about a projectwhen it is formally commenced and gazetted, after whichan objections process or town planning approval processof a definite length will begin. Then after receiving finalapproval from the Secretary of Development or the TPB,the URA has a one-year time limit in which to purchase allthe properties.Yet while this lack of transparency may limit blight atspecific redevelopment sites, on a broader scale it blanketsentire districts with uncertainty. The URA operates in ninetarget areas: Kwun Tong, Ma Tau Kok, Sai Ying Pun, ShamShui Po, Tai Kok Tsui, Tsuen Wan, Wan Chai, Yau MaTei, and Yau Tong. Residents living in there cannot predictwhen or where the URA will intervene, nor is it necessarilyreasonable to assume that the most dilapidated buildingswill be targeted first. The URA’s list of 200 projects wereselected on the basis of opaque criteria, nor did the publichave any input. This overall uncertainty could depressincentives to invest and rehabilitate buildings in general.Placing more control over redevelopment into owners’hands would eliminate the problem of uncertainty. If theURA’s role was limited to organising owners who wereinterested in redevelopment, they would avoid the threatof having their investments in maintenance go to waste.For example, the URA could work together with the HomeAffairs Department to organize owners’ committees indilapidated neighbourhoods so that the owners can voteon whether to pursue redevelopment or repairs. Followingtheir decision, the URA could partner owners up withdevelopers, or provide expertise and funding to carry outrepairs.39