Public money not to be spent buying history: Patrick Ho
Public money would not be spent to secure ownership of 218 historic buildings that are in private hands, Secretary for Home Affairs Patrick Ho Chi-ping said yesterday.
But exceptions were possible in individual cases where the government saw an overriding need, he said.
He was speaking on an RTHK phone-in radio programme a day after the government published a list of 496 buildings classified with varying degrees of historical significance, none of which gave any legal guarantee they would not be demolished.
'The government serves as a platform to facilitate the exchange of different opinions ... but its general principle is not to buy over the ownership of the privately owned historic buildings,' Dr Ho said.
But the government might allow exceptions in some cases when there was an overriding need for doing so and the government had exchanged views with the owners.
He said the coming conservation consultation would aim to gather public opinion about how the element of 'collective memory' - the new catchphrase in conservation policy - could be incorporated in deciding which buildings were worth keeping.
A conservation expert said the new system would leave owners of listed buildings in limbo.
Developers would be deterred from approaching the owners, who would be unsure of what to do with their rundown properties if no outside assistance was offered to refurbish them.
'The list makes it possible for the public and media to scrutinise the redevelopment of the old buildings that the government considers as heritage [sites],' he said.
'However, it also limits the right of the landlords to sell off the sites. You can imagine not many property developers would be willing to go through all the obstacles to develop a site on the list when public outcry in support of heritage conservation is running so high,' he said.
Dr Lee said the government should consider imposing plot ratio and height restrictions on these sites in the long run and allow considerable redevelopment to be done.
Meanwhile, protesters demanding the preservation of Queen's Pier said they would mobilise Filipino maids to attend their gathering on January 21 after Dr Ho said yesterday a delay in the controversial demolition of the site would be 'impractical'.
'The Filipino domestic helpers have enjoyed the areas near the pier and the Town Hall for quite a long time and we will try to incorporate them into our protest movement,' said Chu Hoi-dick, an activist and one of the those who went on a hunger strike to save the pier.
