How The Masterpiece came to feature in a changing landscape

When The Masterpiece made headlines in September for the record-setting sale of the smallest flat in the project - an 816 square foot, one-bedroom unit that fetched HK$24.5 million - the project was a far cry from the original concept floated by the Land Development Corporation (LDC) in 1997. At the time the body - now defunct - announced that it planned to turn the rundown neighbourhood into a commercial block with public open space and underground parking. Fast forward to March 2004, when the master plan was approved by the Town Planning Board. By then a joint venture between New World and the Urban Renewal Authority, which took over from the LDC in 2001, the development - dubbed K11 - had become a mix of hotel, shops and serviced apartments, with the latter taking up the lion's share of the space. The 67-storey tower is the second-highest residential building in Hong Kong, behind The Cullinan in West Kowloon, which is one storey higher. Even more remarkable is the fact that the development, with its 345 flats, sits in an area zoned for purely commercial purposes - not incompatible with the original concept for the 7,600 square metre site of offices and a mall, but at odds with its present incarnation. The master plan for hotel, shops and serviced apartments was approved by the Town Planning Board in March 2004, the Development Bureau said. New World and the URA made two minor amendments to the scheme in June that year and in June 2005 - both approved by the board. New World and the URA had earlier abandoned a harbour-friendly design by US architectural firm Leo A. Daly. Veteran architect Patrick Lau Sau-shing, a member of the board from 1998 to 2006 and a former vice-chairman, said he could not specifically recall the planning application for K11. But he believed the project had gained extra floor space because the application was made for a purely commercial development. Lau said he would file a question to the Legislative Council, asking the Planning Department to explain why the site was now zoned as commercial. 'There are residential flats. The current zoning cannot reflect the genuine nature of the development. They should correct their mistake by making it a commercial and residential neighbourhood,' he said. While the project was awarded a plot ratio of more than 12, Lau said such a development in Kowloon should not be given a ratio of more than 10. Plot ratio defines the total floor area of buildings permitted to be erected on a site. It is calculated by dividing the net floor area of all buildings on the site by the net site area. Kim Chan Kim-on, vice-president of the Hong Kong Institute of Planners, said: 'Developers should get a maximum plot ratio of nine for composite buildings in Kowloon.' Ada Wong Ying-kay, a member of the Development Bureau's committee reviewing the city's redevelopment strategy, said the case showed how social mission had been sacrificed for profit in urban renewal. She believed the URA's involvement had made it easier for the project to gain planning permission because it commanded high respect from planners and officials. 'Instead of serving the public by regenerating their living environment, the URA becomes a developer and creates gentrification,' she said. Redevelopment of K11 was launched in 1997. That year, the LDC sought Town Planning Board approval to pull down 20 ageing blocks on the 7,600 square metre site around Hanoi Road to build offices and a mall. In a plan gazetted on June 6, 1997, the site was designated for commercial development. The outline zoning plan for Tsim Sha Tsui, dated June 1997, stated that it was planned to develop the site for commercial use with public open space and underground parking for buses. A year after the two statutory plans were unveiled to the public, the LDC invoked the Lands Resumption Ordinance to evict unco-operative property owners. The project was also the first and only public-sponsored redevelopment that allowed property owners' participation. By November 1998, it was clear that most of the properties were owned by New World. Instead of issuing a tender to seek joint-venture partners, the LDC formed a joint venture with New World. New World first announced the plan to build serviced apartments in September, 1999. The previous plan for an office block of 980,000 sq ft was revised to include 490,882 sq ft of serviced apartments. The rest was to be used for shops and offices. Shortly before New World unveiled the serviced apartments plan, the Lands Department removed restrictions on sales of serviced apartments after lobbying by the Real Estate Developers Association. The department's move allowed developers to sell such apartments. The serviced apartment plan was approved by the Town Planning Board two months later. Planning arrangements in force at the time treated serviced apartments 'akin to hotels rather than residential flats in terms of building design and operational characteristics'. They were allowed to be built to densities usually reserved for commercial towers rather than the lower density adopted for residential projects. The Lands Department decision to legitimise selling of serviced apartments came as the Town Planning Board issued guidelines in September 1999. These stated: 'For sites subject to adverse environmental constraints, such as areas exposed to industrial/residential or road/residential interface problems, serviced apartment development will play the role of an environmental buffer between the pollution source and other sensitive issues, such as residential. These sites are usually not suitable for residential development but subject to the provision of appropriate mitigation measures - for example installation of central air-conditioning systems, doubled-glazed windows and central management, serviced apartment development could be considered acceptable.' The board's previous guidelines, issued in December 1990, on serviced apartments took a tougher stance. They specified that these apartments were 'establishments providing residential accommodation for leasing purposes'. The term 'serviced apartment' was scrapped from the guidelines in 2000, several months after New World's project was approved. At least one other major development - Hutchison Whampoa's Rambler Crest in Tsing Yi - includes serviced apartment projects sold as though it was a residential development. Hutchison applied for Town Planning Board approval to build a hotel and serviced apartment development in July 1999. Approval was given in November that year and the flats were sold in the summer of 2003. Nicholas Brooke, a veteran surveyor and former Town Planning Board member, said he remembered there was a great deal of concern at the time among board members and officials about developers submitting schemes branded as serviced apartments, which 'looked to all intents and purposes' like residential apartments, and securing a commercial plot ratio with no guarantee that they would be maintained as serviced apartments. He said the government no longer formally recognised the term 'serviced apartment' in leases and other documents because of potential confusion as to what, exactly, it meant. Mary Muvlihill, a long-time resident of Tsim Sha Tsui, asked how the government could allow developers to sell serviced apartments, adding that there must be a way to stop this. Looking up The Masterpiece is HK's second-highest residential building The number of flats in the development, which sits in an area zoned purely for commercial purposes: 345