September_1966 — Page 59

they may use them during that time of the day when not in demand by the working public. Incidentally it would be wrong in Hong Kong to schedule schools as open spaces, as is done elsewhere in town plans, be- cause of the minimum areas of the sites (47,000 sq. ft. in area of the proposed pilot scheme).

A second criticism of the report, is the insufficient consideration given to the comprehensive nature of Hong Kong's existing development. The designated Urban Renewal District is a mixture of shopping, residential. small workshop, industrial and small business activity, a typical Chinese way of living.

The question is: Should this be reprovided in the redevelopment or should the redevelopment conform to conventional town planning ideas of zoning? The report would indicate that for shopping and living the traditional way of life is to be preserved as far as possible in the context of multi-storey concrete struc- tures. But what happens to the man who makes and sells rat-traps at the bottom of Ladder Street? The old run-down areas of Hong Kong are full of such people, many operating from stalls in squatter premises, rent- ed permanent space or permitted pre- mises the small entrepreneur in town planning parlance.

These people, the handicraftsman and street tradesman, provide an im- portant service to the community and the danger is that in the process of movement to new areas, they will disappear. They present

They present a special town-planning problem: they are un- likely to be able to afford the rents (even if controlled) of proper shops. even of modest proportions: their accommodation in "markets" may not be a solution, since a feature of their service is their "on-the-spottedness.”

Reluctant Decision

A third grave weakness in the Working Party's proposals is the re- commendation to encourage private enterprise to do the major part of the redevelopment a decision taken, it is good to note with reluctance.

When are we going to take our heads out of the sand and admit that though the contribution to rehousing made by private enterprise is very great in terms of quantity, it is near to scandalous in terms of quality? to such an extent that we should be considering slum clearance for these newly built areas as well as for the old post-war non-maintained since the former are going the way of the latter for the same reasons.

areas,

Even the proposal not to permit de- velopments on sites less than 28 ft. wide will not guarantee success; one needs convincing that even this width of site can produce designs that will provide a reasonable degree of en- vironmental quality.

The statement that “A frontage of 28 feet would in general allow the redevelopment of a pair of existing tenement houses, and the restriction

on the ratio between the depth and width of the site would prevent an unduly deep. narrow building with little or no light and ventilation in the rear cubicles”, is frightening to think of, coming from a committee which assures itself that it is dealing with Urban Renewal.

One is staggered to find the com- mittee thinking in terms of providing adequately for light and ventilation to rear cubicles!

Nowhere in the report, is there any evidence of a concern for human environment (it is doubtful if the word occurs at all in the report). It is preposterous to think of Urban Renewal without an exten- sive consideration of this all import- ant aspect. The provision of "com- munity facilities" and "amenities" do not produce environment. And to expect private enterprise in Hong Kong to concern itself with such non- profitable nonsense as environment is to live out of this world!

Nor does the solution lie in the statement of Clause 53 "All mem- bers agreed that any buildings erected by private enterprise within an Urban Renewal Area must be efficiently managed and properly maintained." What about the control of occupancy, a major determinant in the creation of slums?

Code Violations

It would not be very far wrong to say that there is not one low-cost domestic type building in the urban area built by private enterprise in re- cent years that has not come into violation of the building code since the granting of its occupation permit. It is extremely naive to suggest that the authorities in Hong Kong would be willing or able to enforce powers to ensure proper occupancy, manage- ment, maintenance and indeed use of buildings in private ownership.

Far East Architect & Builder September, 1966

re-

The only way to carry out development is through a public agency; the idea of a Development Corporation was rejected by the Working Party. probably rightly in the form it was suggested as a kind of public or semi-public corporation. What is required is something like a British New Town Corporation, which in due course becomes the administra- tive body of the town: in the Hong Kong case, redevelopment of urban administration which is long overdue must go hand-in-hand with the re- development of urban structure.

The Housing Authority as at pre- sent constituted is not suitable for the purpose of this redevelopment, which embodies a high degree of town-plan- ning, both in the creative as well as the administrative sense and a high degree of construction execution in- volving civil and municipal engineer- ing.

Success of this urban renewal pro- gramme can only come about through a specially created executive authority independent of the Public Works De- partment, Urban Council and Hous- ing Authority, responsible for the

whole process the planning and

execution and the final management of the redeveloped areas.

The most heartening part of the re- port is that which is relegated to an Appendix -the Housing Authority's suggestions as to how an Urban Rene- wal Area and an individual site could be planned. However it emphasises the points about piece-meal develop- ment already mentioned.

Whilst the Housing Authority's pro- posal for one Area may be very suc- cessful, a whole series of these spread though the designated District could very well be "deadly."

A curious aspect of the Report is the criterion for the retention of exist- ing buildings "that there should be no unnecessary interference with existing property, provided it is in good condition and represents econo- mic development of the site."

No mention is made of the preser- vation of buildings of cultural, historic and architectural interest, which are not likely to be in good condition and which certainly do not represent economic development of the site in Hong Kong terms. These will no doubt be scheduled for demolition. whereas many apallingly badly de- signed tenements of recent construc- tion will be allowed to stand! The temple area in Hollywood Road and some of the nearby shop-houses with delicate wrought iron balconies and the colonial type administrative buildings are worth keeping and pre- serving.

The preservation of existing buildings of interest always presents a problem in urban renewal pro- grammes. the more so will be the case in Hong Kong, because of the scale of the new development likely to occur adjacent to old buildings. and obviously it would defeat the object, if there were created in these new developments, tourist attractive Disneylands.

Problems such as this are challeng ing and must be faced; however they provide possible clues to ways of de- veloping environmental qualities. Ob- viously, old small scale buildings to be preserved are best associated with new open spaces, and also old areas with pleasant (though run-down) en- vironmental qualities could be re- suscitated in new open spaces: such an area is Circular Path.

Ruthlessness Needed

The criterion for the retention of new buildings is whether or not they conform to the pattern of the new development: the new town plan should not be drawn round them as it were: a characteristic of urban re- newal policy is the need to be ruthless if recently built structures stand in the way of achieving a good plan.

In brief then, it may be said that in finding a purely practical solution to a problem, the Working Party has done well, but in breathing human life into it, it has failed. There is too (Continued on page 81)

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