Candid Comment (Cont.)
extent, to an extent that any feel- ing at all for humanity would demand. Secondly, there are sus- welcome picions, that landlords
the damaging effect of adjacent site operations, hoping that their buildings will attract a closure order. causing the evacuation of the
tenants without the tedious processes of the Tenancy Tribunal (not being unwilling to pay com- pensation) and hoping that pro- posals to rebuild will satisfy essen- tial works orders.
Even if greater attention is paid to
general law enforcement, and more scope given to the law relat- ing to the maintenance of premises and to the actions of adjoining owners, these measures will not solve the real fundamental problem, which is one of urban renewal. It may be argued that urban renewal does in fact occur, in the natural order of events, particularly so when rebuilding is going on. Το accept this is not to understand the meaning of the term. Urban renewal does not mean rebuilding alone. It accepts the premise that the conditions that caused the pre- sent form of development can no longer apply.
-
In the urban areas
of Hong Kong in recent years, sites have been permitted to be developed beyond the extent to which the street patterns and dimension, the public services. and the amenities, were provided. If the need was felt to allow this higher density development, and it would appear to be justified, then the whole should have been com- prehensively replanned this is the basic technique of urban re- newal
the creation of new towns, new neighbourhoods, new environments in place of the old. The rebuilding in Hong Kong occur-
red mainly in the central areas, but it is now spreading widely to the very old parts, to the large areas of what are now tenement buildings with shops (and work- shops) at street level, the Canton and Hollywood Roads, but like the central areas this is going on, on
an
individual replacement basis, where the last will soon be worse than the first. Elsewhere such areas have in the past been termed "areas of blight" a fitting description. for much of the urban areas of Hong Kong.
There is only one answer and that is
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the definition of these areas as re- development areas and their com- prehensive re-planning. This means
that each area is treated as a unit
and provided with a new street layout with new housing, shopping, schools, clinics, and other necessi- ties and amenities and not omitting the recreational facilities, and open spaces.
To say that this cannot be done in Hong Kong is nonsense; it requires fiscal planning, a determined policy. and adventurous thinking. In ternis of finance, comprehensive large scale development is more econo- mic than piecemeal development, not only to the public purse but to the private pocket, and engenders communal as well as individual prosperity.
The Government is the overall land- lard, it has land at its disposal and it has power to resume land, and complex though the operation may be, it is not impossible to start à chain reaction, whereby the whole of the functions of a redevelopment area are transferred, lock, stock and barrel to a newly built new neigh- bourhood, allowing the
the original area to be razed to the ground and re-developed. providing another neighbourhood for another blighted area to be redeveloped. We are, in effect, doing this with our large scale housing programmes. why not make it comprehensive?
new
CROSS-HARBOUR TUNNEL - NEW PROBLEMS FOR OLD
Without a Master Plan, decisions on development may only he made on an ad hoc basis. Whilst intuitive decisions are often right, intuitive- ness and the visual results indicate quite clearly that many things are going wrong for want of planning. Recently the question of the Cross- Harbour Tunnel again came to the surface, Government is expected to approve a scheme. How may it possibly do so. without being able to see the effect on the overall movement of traffic in the Colony? And how may it possibly do this. without a Plan?
It does not take even intuition to see that any form of vehicular com- munication across the harbour which encourages traffic flow through the Central Areas is creat- ing a new problem for an old one. When we should be discouraging or preventing access of traffic to Central Areas (except that which has a function to carry out there) we are doing the opposite. Cross-Harbour connection for vehi- cles. by ferries, tunnels or bridges could be kept to the eastern and western extremities of the urban area and could be linked by ring roads. running along the foot hills in Kowloon, and at mid-levels on the Island, so that traffic could by- pass the urban areas and feed-in to the urban areas, at the nearest points and to feed-out from the urban areas to the ring-road.
But whether or not that is the right answer, it is not possible to say, without a thorough study in con- junction with the production of a Master Plan, of which it really should be part.
Traffic surveys are carried out from time to time. but these again are commissioned on an ad hoc basis, and not being done simultaneously. it must be difficult to co-ordinate and to interpolate the data pro- duced. (if indeed this is done. It hardly needs a traffic survey to show that there is sufficient foot traffic at peak hours on the ferries. not to involve motor-traffic with it. that public transport generally is inadequate, that vehicle transport needs to be reduced to essentials in urban areas, that a tunnel or
bridge will put
put Victoria and Kowloon on a route. thus no longer functioning as termini. particularly when new towns are built and existing towns and villages are developed.
What traffic surveys will show are the magnitudes and incidences of all these problems and provide a hasis for planning: to carry out a survey of passenger transport for instance without a survey of goods transportation is next to useless. The unnecessary use of roads by goods traffic, because of lack of planning, is contributory to traffic congestion. and the less importance that will be placed on the venue of industrial and other develop- ment because of improved means of communication (if the tunnel is built), will nullify itself. unless all collateral activities and effects are anticipated and planned for. If a cross-harbour tunnel is going to create further large scale pro- blems, as it seems likely to do, as a present planned, then it is better to forget it.
THE HONG KONG & FAR EAST BUILDER-VOLUME 19, NUMBER 2