Environmental Headlines

2004 May—Environmental Headlines

Historical Building under Threat CA Urges to Keep Kin Yin Lei

The magnificent Chinese style mansion located at 45 Stubbs Road is up for tender, which closes in early June. Estate agents said it is highly likely that the new buyer would demolish the property and redevelop it given the recovered property market. The Conservancy Association, a strong advocate of the historical heritage, has written to the Secretary for Home Affairs Patrick Ho requesting him to consider declaring the mansion as a monument under the Antiquities and Monuments Ordinance.

The mansion, which sits on a 50 650 square feet site, is at least 68 years old. The site comprises a three-storey "red bricks and green tiles" building, a private garden festooned with bonsai plants, various pavilions and terraces. It has been a scenic spot for mainland and overseas tourists. The legendary TV series "Yesterday's Glitter" starring Lisa Wong and the 1955 Hollywood movie "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing" was shot in the mansion.

The building is well preserved because in the early years, the family who owns it valued the mixed-style pre-War residence with Chinese Renaissance architectural style. CA has urged the Government to declare it as a historical monument promptly and saved it from demolition.

CA is of the view that the current heritage conservation policy is too passive and lack public input. According to the Antiquities and Monuments Ordinance, only the Secretary for Home Affairs in his capacity as Antiquities Authority can declare a building as a monument, on condition that Chief Executive has approved of it and the decision gazetted.

In terms of planning, there is no special zoning for historical buildings. Even if the Town Planning Board has turned down applications to increase the plot ratio of a specific plot, the actual protection offered to the building is minimal.

In the letter to Patrick Ho, CA suggested that the Government should take into account the practices of overseas governments, such as establishing mechanism under the Antiquities and Monuments Ordinance for citizens to put forward requests for declaration of monuments.

Review of Built Heritage Conservation Policy

CA has submitted its comments to the Review of Built Heritage Conservation Policy consultation. The review was indeed of crucial importance as Hong Kong has come under strong development pressure and that results many buildings of high historical value disappearing one by one, such as Lee Theatre, Wanchai Methodist Church and Tiger Balm Garden. Even though there are some notable victories such as Kam Tong Hall, Lui Seng Chun in recent years, no one would dispute that the success had taken much time and resources. If the government can develop a more concrete and comprehensive conservation policy for historical buildings, the community would pay less to achieve preservation. In our submission, we stress that the government should start the next stage of consultation to explore the genuine tool to preserve the heritage.

Landfill Charging and Hunghom Peninsula

The Legco Bills Committee on Waste Disposal (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2003 discussed Landfill Charging Scheme on 28 April. The Conservancy Association staged a petition outside the Legco Building and presented paper-made demolition hammers to the committee members, reminding them that if they blocked the bill from passing, developers could generate construction wastes at no cost, which equaled to encouraging Hunghom Peninsula developers to demolish the buildings. The Legislators would become accomplices to the act.

Eight years has passed since the Government proposed the Landfill Charging Scheme. CA urged the legislators to pass the bill as soon as possible and implement the "polluter pay principle" Every day 10 200 tonnes of construction wastes are sent to landfill, based on the operation cost of $125 per tonne, the whole society has to pay $1 270 000 every day, it is simply not fair. If the bill is further delayed, the developers of Hunghom Peninsula can dump 200 000 tonnes of construction waste to the landfill at the expense of whole society paying $20 million.

CA will closely monitor what vote the legislator cast: if they delay the bill without good cause so that the bill cannot be passed in this term, the process may have to start from scratch as the election this September will return a new term of legislators.