Hemmed in
When I moved recently to a Wan Chai flat I made a checklist of things to avoid. Like everyone else I wanted to stay clear of noisy neighbours, barking dogs, building sites, excessive traffic noise, cockroaches from restaurants below, and brothels.
What I didn't think of was the 'wall effect'. It is not something I have experienced before, which probably explains why it didn't even occur to me to avoid it at all costs. Except for brothels in my building, I ended up with everything I started out to avoid. The construction noise stops at night and the barking dogs do stop when they feel like it. But I can now report first-hand the 'wall effect' never stops. It is worse than the fires of hell.
Tomorrow, when Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen delivers his annual policy speech, you will likely hear him talk briefly about the 'wall effect' of monster buildings that ring our city, shutting off air flow. He will proclaim the government wants to do something about it. To prove his sincerity he is expected to cancel a plan to sell the multibillion-dollar Central Market site to Hong Kong's relentless developers who have long eyed it for another skyscraper. Applaud Tsang if you want but only if you don't mind the sound of your own clapping reverberating back to you. Central's already fortress-like 'wall effect' might just do that.
In case the chief executive gets me wrong, I appreciate his gesture. But that's all it is, a gesture. Central Market is Hong Kong's last historical building of its type. Greedy developers shouldn't be let anywhere near it.
But neither Tsang nor anyone else can now save our city from the 'wall effect'. It is simply too late. The wall effect is already here. The developers, aided by a compliant government, have already done their dirty work.
There is something immoral about the relationship between the government and the developers. It is not simply that of a capitalist-minded government allowing the private sector to get on with it with minimum interference. The relation is far cozier than that. Our government comes across as almost bending over backwards to the dictates of the developers.
An example of this is being played out right now with the almost comical move by developers to make their sales brochures less dishonest. Developers have, for decades, misled homebuyers with sales brochures that contain more lies than truth.
Flat sizes are inflated, views exaggerated and negative surrounding features covered up. They have been doing this openly and unashamedly. But the government turned a blind eye, refusing to legislate against such fraud.
It is illegal to sell a silver coin as gold or a half a catty of meat as a full catty. New food labelling laws require merchants to list the exact ingredients of what they're selling.
So why does the government allow developers to falsely claim they're selling you a piece of heaven which is in fact a shoe-box flat with a view of a sewage plant? Who are officials afraid of - the powerful developers themselves or their powerful contacts in Beijing?
Public pressure, not government boldness, has now forced the developers to police themselves. They have promised to make their sales brochures less deceitful. But they've refused to stop inflating the size of flats. And they will stick to the sleazy pressure tactic of making brochures available only 24 hours before they put flats on sale. They also want to go on lying in promotional materials.
Hong Kong's wall effect is the result of a visionless government - whose only land sales criteria is to maximise revenue - acting in tandem with developers whose only aim is to maximise profits.
The developers wanted ever taller buildings with scant regard for the environmental damage this would cause Hong Kong. The government fast-tracked their demands in the name of positive non-interventionism. Together they bequeathed a monument to us. We have even coined a term for it - the wall effect.
Michael Chugani is a columnist and broadcaster
