URA cannot serve the public interest as a real estate business
The Urban Renewal Authority (URA) has made it perfectly clear that its motives have never been about 'ending urban decay' as it states.
As it has begun to bring to light, it is apologising to the public for the losses its [revised] Staunton Street plans will generate ('Staunton Street project scaled down', November 25).
It is and always has been a for-profit organisation.
It serves the interests of the developers it represents and destroys neighborhoods in its wake.
It should never have been in the real estate business to begin with.
It is not what the people the URA represents wanted it to do.
What the people of Hong Kong want and deserve is a government that sets the rules for development with zoning and safety requirements but does not get its hands dirty in the actual development process.
Even with the scaled-back version for Staunton Street, the plan is flawed.
It is an attempt to fix something that is not working and minimise the damage.
Unfortunately, the only way to save this area is to remove the URA completely from the equation and allow private developers to continue the process of development that they have begun. The URA should refocus its efforts on the less glamorous areas which really need its help.
It needs to do what governments do, set the rules, not seek profit at the expense of the public interest.
It is not too late to stop the URA plans for Staunton Street.
It needs to hear from more people about how they feel about what the URA is doing.
Ultimately, we need the government to recognise that any system that relies on an organisation like the URA will not work.
I hope we have that kind of enlightened government but I have not seen any evidence of this yet.
Dare Koslow, Central
