Community deserves chance to save heritage
Hong Kong does not abound with large landscaped gardens that offer a haven from the pressures of life in a crowded city. They also are not being made any more. They are a finite asset. So is the land they stand on, and they are therefore much coveted by developers. Where they may be considered part of our cultural heritage, however, they should not be sold and concreted over until their importance is assessed.
This calls for a process that reconciles the community value of heritage with the rights of private property owners and the benefits of development. But we are not that much closer to having such an established framework for determining what is worth keeping than when the late tycoon Lee Iu-cheung built the eight-hectare Dragon Garden in Sham Tseng in 1948.
As we report today, it is the fate of this private garden and the prospect of Hong Kong losing another piece of its heritage that has highlighted once again the problems arising from reliance on a heritage law that dates back to 1976 and falls short of contemporary conservation values.
Dragon Garden's hundreds of species of trees and flowers, landscaped with ponds, bridges and dynastic Chinese architecture, would be a loss to any high-rise community. It was open for public viewing from the 1970s to early 1980s and a popular Hong Kong setting for movies.
Now Lee's children want to sell the waterfront site on Castle Peak road to a developer. A grandchild wants to see it saved as part of the city's heritage. She is supported by a green group and architects who have urged the government to intervene.
It is arguable that the garden is not old enough to be considered a heritage site. However, the post-war years were a watershed in the growth and development of modern Hong Kong that will one day be a source of heritage for future generations. A grand garden owned by one of the founding fathers of Hong Kong's wealth and prosperity, the last remaining structure designed by an architect involved in the restoration of the Forbidden City in Beijing, might well be considered an example worthy of preserving for future generations.
In the absence of a government policy to save privately owned heritage sites, the conservation-minded grandchild can only appeal for support to stop the sale. Eventually, this could require government intervention to negotiate with the owners.
The government has intervened from time to time to save heritage sites from demolition, recent examples being Kam Tong Hall in Mid-Levels - for a museum dedicated to Sun Yat-sen - and the unique King Yin Lei mansion in Stubbs Road.
But this remains a precarious way of going about it. The present heritage law provides for only one form of conservation - declaring a single building a monument based on its historical significance and architectural merit. This has led to protection for a small number of buildings and sites, while a generally weak preservation policy offers little protection to everything else.
The case-by-case approach has failed. Two years ago the Home Affairs Bureau issued a consultation paper that raised the broad policy questions of what to preserve, how to do it and how much should we be prepared to pay. It was vague and we are still waiting for answers. Recently the bureau told lawmakers more time was needed to study a complicated topic.
Meanwhile, we often depend on a public outcry to persuade the government to save what is left of unique, socially significant and architecturally important sites. This is not good for the owners, the developers or for the public.
There are better ways of conserving heritage but finding them calls for more active leadership from the government rather than a passive approach. They will not come without a cost. It has to be expected that owners will want to be compensated for giving up potentially higher returns. But the public should be given a choice.
