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of my speech, though spoken in Cantonese, and the MC got the wrong response from the wrong team leaders when she called upon the name of a team captain.
Another important area to look at is the low utilization rate of some of the swimming pool complexes, in off-centre locations, either indoor or outdoor. If the utilization rate is poor, there must be a lot of users' requirements that have not been met for some reasons, which itself warrants an independent separate case study before improvements could be made.
For public parks and gardens, users are usually more diversified, ranging from the most elderly, the teen-agers, to the babies in the prams with mothers attending, depends on the hours of the day. From users' point of view, the comments are however almost identical from park to park. They requested more rain shelters at strategic locations; more public toilets at convenient spots but not at too long distances; less standard UC design arbours with pergolas which never give proper shelter against rainfall; less disturbing internal vehicular traffic; less internal parking space; no smoking in the public toilets; no smoking in the park except designated corners; ... etc. It naturally appears that the role of park management is as important as the park design itself, from users' point of view.
Perhaps no one would disagree that markets should be the most significant item of municipal venues that users' requirements should be well taken into consideration both in its initial design stage and in the subsequent improvement/adjustment schemes after it is in operation. This is because the terms 'users' here involves both hirers of the stalls and customers of the market, and financial viability is the life-line of this municipal facility.
If the stall-hirers (mostly they were formerly hawkers on the street) could not earn their living, then at least part of the market stalls would be vacated. The market floor would then not only be under-utilized but would also create a low morale to the other remaining hirers because the market lacks the atmosphere of prosperity. This gloomy feeling may also in turn affect the customers who may look for alternative sources of their food supply in fear of the possible poor quality of food and service that may associate with a declining business centre, and this in turn might affect the stall-hirers and starts a vicious cycle that may go beyond remedy.
Government architects should not only produce a market floor that is aesthetically and environmentally sound but should also learn from the hawkers' experience the best local geographical configurations of the rows of stalls that can catch the pedestrian customers by equal chances and make all the stalls to have the best of their business. To promote equal chance for all stall-hirers, the rows of stalls should be accessible from all sides or at least all corners in the market floor so that no customers would be 'forced' to shop at some stalls that have a significant geographical advantage over the others, and Cul-de-sac designs of rows should definitely be avoided.
As an independent issue but reflecting users' wishes the long debated policy of providing adjoining parking spaces for market shoppers, like those already done in Singapore, should be raised for a review and re-debated in the Council, as such type of parking convenience will definitely enhance the business viability of all markets.
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Users' requirements in the design of any municipal facilities should not only be incorporated in the beginning during the briefing stage to the ASD architects but should also be reviewed and up-dated by feed-backs from actual users after the premises have been open and in operation for sometime, say, half-a-year. Users' opinion poll as feed-backs may take the form of surveys by returning questionnaires, by actual site visits and contacts with users, by quiet observation or by holding forums or seminars, depending on the nature of the facility and the social background of the users.
If users' views are not surveyed and collected and reflected in time, errors in our municipal facilities will likely be repeated and repeated again and will waste a lot of our tax-payers resources. It is a tedious procedure but a necessary devil for improvement. Not all that what I am saying about the municipal facilities and users' requirements are that totally bad and gloomy. I am glad to report that there are still some brighter side of the picture. For instance, through a direct dialogue with the arts community in the form of a series of forums, criticisms and wishes of the artists are being collated for our possible arts policy review of the museums and cultural centres. The disabled is a special category of users, and our Museum of Art has recently won an award for the merit of 'being the most accessible to the disabled people' as an architectural design, thanks to the joint efforts of the USD & the ASD. Apart from these, the credit of being the most design conscious for users' requirement in our present municipal facilities should go to the new public toilet projects and old-toilet improvement schemes. Thanks to the efforts of our Chairman.
It is with the above words, Mr. Chairman, I support the motion.
MR. MA LEE-WO (in Cantonese):—In the past decade, the composition of the Urban Council has kept on changing. The latest change is that starting from April this year, there will be no appointed members in the Urban Council and the number of elected members will increase from the existing 15 to 32. With the 9 members from the District Boards, there will be a total of 41 Urban Councillors. I expect that less than 10 of the serving members can return to the Council. In other words, many new faces will appear in the next batch of Urban Councillors. New faces will bring in a new style of work. All unfavourable elements should be discarded and favourable ones retained, and improvements should be sought constantly. This is the time to reform the Urban Council. I would like to take this opportunity to put forward my views on this subject:
Getting rid of bad habits
1.
'Chairman seats are shared among Members like pieces of a cake'. This is already an open secret. It is ridiculous that in order to satisfy the demand of indirectly elected members for a balance of power among the three categories of Members, more Chairman seats were created by forming more functional select committees. When the committee chairmen were re-elected two years ago, the indirectly elected members, failing to get the chairmanships they wanted, expressed their dissatisfaction by staging a mass walkout. This kind of behaviour is sheer disgrace. We cannot help asking: did they join the Urban Council to serve the public or just to gain fame? This has exposed the shortcomings of the indirect election system, its small coterie politics and its lack of representation. I maintain that all Urban Councillors should be directly elected and
Page 98 of 115
Page 98 of 115
184
||
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Page 98 of 115
185
of my speech, though spoken in Cantonese, and the MC got the wrong response from the wrong team leaders when she called upon the name of a team captain.
Another important areas to look at is the low utilization rate of some of the swimming pool complexes, in off-centre locations, either indoor or outdoor. If the utilization rate is poor, there must be a lot of users' requirements that have not been met for some reasons, which itself warrants an independent separate case study before improvements could be made.
For public parks and gardens, users are usually more diversified, ranging from the most elderly, the teen-agers, to the babies in the prams with mothers attending, depends on the hours of the day. From users' point of view, the comments are however almost identical from park to park. They requested more rain shelters at strategic locations; more public toilets at convenient spots but not at too long distances; less standard UC design arbours with pergolas which never give proper shelter against rainfall; less disturbing internal vehicular traffic; less internal parking space; no smoking in the public toilets; no smoking in the park except designated corners; ... etc. It naturally appears that the role of park management is as important as the park design itself, from users' point of view.
Perhaps no one would disagree that markets should be the most significant item of municipal venues that users' requirement's should be well taken into consideration both in its initial design stage and in the subsequent improvement/adjustment schemes after it is in operation. This is because the terms 'users' here involves both hirers of the stalls and customers of the market, and financial viability is the life-line of this municipal facility.
If the stall-hirers (mostly they were formerly hawkers on the street) could not earn their living, then at least part of the market stalls would be vacated. The market floor would then not only be under-utilized but would also create a low morale to the other remaining hirers because the market lacks the atmosphere of prosperity. This gloomy feeling may also in turn affect the customers who may look for alternative sources of their food supply in fear of the possible poor quality of food and service that may associate with a declining business centre, and this in turn might affect the stall-hirers and starts a vicious cycle that may go beyond remedy.
Government architects should not only produced a market floor that is aesthetically and environmentally sound but should also learn from the hawkers' experience the best local geographical configurations of the rows of stalls that can catch the pedestrian customers by equal chances and make all the stalls to have the best of their business. To promote equal chance for all stall-hirers, the rows of stalls should be accessible from all sides or at least all corners in the market floor so that no customers would be 'forced' to shop at some stalls that have a significant geographical advantage over the others, and Cul-de-sac designs of rows should definitely be avoided.
As an independent issue but reflecting users' wishes the long debated policy of providing adjoining parking spaces for market shoppers, like those already done in Singapore, should be raised for a review and re-debated in the Council, as such type of parking convenience will definitely enhance the business vialibity of all markets.
Page 98 of 115
F
Users' requirements in the design of any municipal facilities should not only be incorporated in the beginning during the briefing stage to the ASD architects but should also be reviewed and up-dated by feed-backs from actual users after the premises have been open and in operation for sometime, say, half-a-year. Users' opinion poll as feed-backs may take the form of surveys by returning questionaires, by actual site visits and contacts with users, by quiet observation or by holding forums or seminars, depending on the nature of the facility and the social background of the users.
If users' views are not surveyed and collected and relfected in time, errors in our municipal facilities will likely be repeated and repeated again and will waste a lot of our tax-payers resoures. It is a tedious procedure but a necessary devil for improvement. Not all that what I am saying about the municipal facilities and users' requirements are that totally bad and gloomy. I am glad to report that there are still some brighter side of the picture. For instance, through a direct dialogue with the arts community in the form of a series of forums, criticisms and wishes of the artists are bing collated for our possible arts policy review of the museums and cultural centres. The disabled is a special category of users, and our Museum of Art has recently won an award for the merit of 'being the most accessible to the disabled people' as an architectural design, thanks to the joint efforts of the USD & the ASD. Apart from these, the credit of being the most design concious for users' requirement in our present municipal facilities should go to the new public toilet projects and old-toilet improvement schemes. Thank to the efforts of our Chairman.
It is with the above words, Mr. Chairman, I support the motion.
MR. MA LEE-WO (in Cantonese):—In the past decade, the composition of the Urban Council has kept on changing. The latest change is that starting from April this year, there will be no appointed members in the Urban Council and the number of elected members will increase from the existing 15 to 32. With the 9 members from the District Boards, there will be a total of 41 Urban Counillors. I expect that less than 10 of the serving members can return to the Council. In other words, many new faces will appear in the next batch of Urban Councillors. New faces will bring in a new style of work. All unfavourable elements should be discarded and favourable ones retained, and improvements should be sought constantly. This is the time to reform the Urban Council. I would like to take this opportunity to put forward my views on this subject:
Getting rid of bad habits
1.
'Chairman seats are shared among Members like pieces of a cake'. This is already an open secret. It is ridiculous that in order to satisfy the demand of indirectly elected members for a balance of power among the three categories of Members, more Chairman seats were created by forming more functional select committees. When the committee chairman were re-elected two years ago, the indirectly elected members, failing to get the chairmanships they wanted, expressed their dissatisfaction by staging a mass walkout. This kind of behaviour is sheer disgrace. We cannot help asking: did they join the Urban Council to serve the public or just to gain fame? This has exposed the shortcomings of the indirect election system, its small coterie politics and its lack of representation. I maintain that all Urban Councillors should be directly elected and
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