Wedding Card Street residents press for new flats nearby
Residents of Wan Chai's Wedding Card Street have renewed their pressure on the government to offer them flats nearby when their own homes are demolished for redevelopment.
Lee Tung Street - commonly known as Wedding Card Street because it is home to a cluster of wedding-card printing shops - and other adjoining streets will be redeveloped into a leisure, shopping, residential and commercial precinct.
Residents have been calling for a 'flat-for-flat' relocation to a new development nearby on the corner of Ship Street and Johnston Road, and last month, they stormed the Urban Renewal Authority headquarters in Sheung Wan to make their point.
'Many residents want to stay in the district to maintain their social network or business. Rather than receiving compensation and leaving Wan Chai, we are asking for other alternatives,' residents' representative Juney Kam said yesterday.
'The former Planning and Lands Bureau promised to give residents of redevelopment areas the 'flat-for-flat' option.'
Just 51 per cent of the 647 properties on the street have been acquired by the government. Many residents claim the compensation being offered is too little for them to buy a similar flat.
