Hong Kong Institute of Urban Design Public Affairs Committee’s Response to the 2015 Policy Address

1.      With respect to the 2015 Policy Address, whilst appreciating the urgency of increasing the supply of housing units as a means to combat the high prices of private housing, we do take issue with the strong statement in para. 74 which reads: “Society as a whole must make hard choices.”  

2.      In December 2013, HKIUD has tendered its comments on the Government’s “Long Term Housing Strategy : Building Sustainable Homes - Consultation Document, September 2013”. Many of the comments are still valid. http://www.hkiud.org/en/whats-new/announcement/178-response-on-long-term-housing-strategy-building-sustainable-homes-consultation-document-september-2013 . In gist, we advocate Diversity, Quality, Mixed Use Society, Phased Development, open up public space, adaptive reuse of industrial buildings, review current Building Regulations and OZPs, allow flexibility in housing design, … etc. We are disappointed that little attention has been given to enhancing the quality of our housing, including the enhancement to per person spatial standards and quality of the public spaces.  We wish to reiterate that to render a city a “livable city” is not just getting the numbers right. It should be noted that “Hong Kong has plunged 16 notches to rank 33th in an annual survey of the world’s most livable cities, down from 17th a year earlier.” although HKSAR retains its 6^th place from last year, after Singapore, Osaka, Nagoya, Tokyo and Yokohama among Asian cities. (# ref. EJinsight 23-01-2015: “HK plummets in global ranking of livable cities” http://www.ejinsight.com/20150123-hk-plummets-in-global-ranking-of-livable-cities/ ) Rating factors included climate, availability of health services, housing and utilities, isolation, access to a social network and leisure facilities, infrastructure, personal safety, political tensions and air quality. Further increasing the city’s density by adding more in-fill developments would likely aggravate the air quality problem. Besides, without setting a mandatory standard on flat sizes, developers would likely make the flats ever smaller, which is prejudicial to good health.

3.      A good quality city environment would also enhance its value as a whole and would help to attract and retain talents and investments. Urban designers have a mission to make cities vibrant and interesting, organic and adaptable, healthy and safe, valuable yet low maintenance, connected and integrated, convenient and comfortable, green and sustainable, diverse and sociable. We thus consider that the Policy Address must have long term visions and should not dismiss these important attributes for the convenience of meeting short term objectives.

4.      As regards the problem of identifying more housing sites to meet the need to supply more flats, instead of only attributing the slow progress to the relatively long public engagement process, more innovative solutions may be needed to set free as yet tied up potential sites, such as civil servants housing scheme sites for redevelopment, and sites which have been zoned Residential (Group E) – as at 2012, it is noticed that some 75 ha. of Industrial sites have been zoned R(E). A review may be needed to see how policies may be adjusted to facilitate the transformation to take place.

5.      We also reiterate that whilst maintaining a high density city form, innovative design should be given to the provision of adequate and good quality public open spaces in close proximity to housing. To give identity to and enhance the quality of urban spaces, wider application of "thematic planting" concepts should be applied in formulating future developments such as in the planning of new towns, CDA and NDA sites. Local community farming and building with green roofs may also be compatible with each other. The recent public engagement on “New Agricultural Policy” may be a corner stone to integrating high density and LOHAS (Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability) living, as well as contributing to the local economy if the local community can have support and assistance through corresponding proactive and integrated policies.

6.      We noted and support the proposals of promoting a “Water-friendly culture and activities” as stated in paras.178-181. The waterfront of Victoria Harbour is indeed a great asset and has immense potential for hosting various local and possibly international water sports. We support initiatives to improve the water quality and would further suggest that a master-plan of harbourfront land uses should be prepared to provide a framework to facilitate the early implementation of such initiatives. Nevertheless, it is disappointing that the Policy Address this year has not reinforced Government's determination to the setting up of a Harbourfront Authority as soon as possible.

7.      Inland, although there is an on-going project of revitalising the Kai Tak River being undertaken by the CEDD, there would be many more such opportunities of re-opening and beautifying covered nullahs and water-course in the city yet to be examined and promoted. A few possible examples are : Wun Sha Street in Tai Hang, Nam Chong Street in Sham Shui Po, King Yip Street in Kwun Tong, etc. If more water courses can be revitalised along similar concepts as Kai Tak and Cheonggyecheon in Seoul, it would help substantially to energise and improve both the micro-climate and image of our city.  Whilst projects as mentioned for the new development areas and the NT are useful, improvements to the older urban areas would be even more beneficial and must not be ignored.

8.      Indeed the development and planning of a city must be in three dimensional context. This is especially so in Hong Kong as we are and used to boast ourselves as a compact city.  Progress in this area was unfortunately rather slow. As far as we are aware, several studies on the use of underground spaces have been undertaken in past years, such as the “SPUN” (Study on Potential Uses of Underground Space) in 1988. It was already acknowledged that uses such as container freight station, tractor and trailer park, oil and gas storage, sewage treatment works, refuse transfer station, warehousing, commercial, government, institution and community space, etc. are possible underground uses as a viable alternative which could confer significant environmental benefit to the city. Again, in the 2009 Policy Address’s initiative of “Breaking New Ground Together” and the subsequent study by CEDD – the “Enhanced Use of Underground Space in Hong Kong” in 2011. However, for so many years, things remained on the shelves. It is only as late as end 2014 that a further study was commenced to investigate the relocation of actual projects like the Sha Tin Sewage Treatment Works to rock caverns and the relocation of three other facilities to caverns. Underground land uses, where feasible, should be formalized as a proper source of land supply and be integrated in the overall planning and development strategies, such as in the review of the “HK2030”, “CTS” and Port and Airport development strategies rather than as fire-fighting measures to meet a short term land shortage crisis.

9.      We also noticed the emptiness in the past many years in the Digital 21 Strategy, which was first promulgated in 1998 as a blueprint for Hong Kong’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) development. It is a step forward that Smart City in this era of the big data is mentioned in this year’s Policy Address. However, as urban designers, we consider that just taking Kowloon East as a pilot area for exploration would hardly serve the purpose. It is noticed that the initiative was publicised by the EKEO : “to examine the feasibility of developing a “Smart City”, such as using technology to enhance pedestrian and vehicular accessibility, manage the district facilities, and disseminate information to the public in digital format …” in its Conceptual master Plan 4.0 with proposals, inter alia, to make Kowloon East a “walkable city”. We do support efforts of making the city walkable and highly appreciate EKEO’s initiative on this aspect. However, the concept of “Smart City” when placed in a Territory wide policy context, should have a much wider scope. There are many smart city initiatives in other cities in the world where we may learn from, for example: Barcelona, Incheon of Korea, Tiantsin Eco-city, Yokohama, etc. We hope that Hong Kong’s study would take a wider perspective covering ways of providing intelligent services to citizens and tackling effects of climate change, instead of just limited to traffic control measures of a small area.

10.  On the whole, it is considered that policy making at a strategic level must always be integrated, multi-disciplinary and visionary and not to miss out on the 3-dimensional and human scale considerations.

ENDS

Public Affairs Committee

Of the Hong Kong Institute of Urban Design

31 March 2015