A tale of two cultural districts
I found out what good governance really meant only when I saw with my own eyes how an old, industrialised city was transformed into a new cultural metropolis.
We went to Bilbao, Spain, to have a look at the cultural district there, because of the similarities with Hong Kong's. The size of the site there is 38.5 hectares, which is pretty much the same as the cultural site proposed in West Kowloon, with 40 hectares. The district for the Abandoibarra project is located along a river, while our cultural district is by the waterfront. But it is a completely different story when it comes to how the two governments are planning and implementing their projects.
When the five of us from the Legislative Council subcommittee on the West Kowloon Cultural District Development first arrived in Bilbao for a visit two weeks ago, my first impression was that the city was clean, lively and prosperous. We took a guided tour, and could see that people were generally quite happy.
Then we met the city's first deputy mayor, Ibon Areso, who told us how Abandoibarra was born. The leaders decided to transform the city into a service- and culture-led economy after Bilbao, once a centre of steel production, fell on hard times and became run-down.
The Abandoibarra project is operated by a publicly listed, private company called Bilbao Rio 2000. It has all the real power, plus the 38.5 hectares of land. The government of Bilbao has shown a lot of commitment to the project by building infrastructure there, including a green belt, tramway and core buildings.
There is also a consultative body, made up of all sectors of the community, to follow through and discuss how the project should proceed. It has been used by the government as a lobbying tool, and serves as a forum where non-governmental organisations and officials can persuade each other of their own proposals. It also serves as a platform for the exchange of ideas, and acts as a think-tank.
The deputy mayor told me that if the city government and the project operators ignored ideas put forward by this body, they would have to do a lot of explaining to the public.
Officials told us how they planned the project and how they used it to revitalise a nearby run-down area. All these are reasons why the project is now a success, and these are things that Hong Kong should learn.
Clearly, officials in Bilbao have creative planning, firm leadership and a good mechanism to execute the plan. But we do not seem to have all these in Hong Kong.
With the experience of this visit, I am shocked by the difference compared to how our government is handling the West Kowloon Cultural District project. The cultural sector, legislators and other related parties here do not have a real platform to discuss how the project should proceed. We do not have a real open dialogue with officials - who conduct their feasibility studies behind closed doors. The government does not even show any commitment to the scheme, intending simply to pass the site to a developer to take care of everything. We will not know the government's next move until Chief Secretary Rafael Hui Si-yan makes an announcement later this week.
So far, press reports have suggested that the government will not proceed with the project the way we would like it to. It seems that officials will try to avoid making any drastic changes to the original plan. But we can still hope for the best.
Alan Leong Kah-kit is a legislator and chairman of the Legislative Council subcommittee on the West Kowloon Cultural District Development
