Most privately-owned public spaces in Hong Kong lack seating and are under closed-circuit television surveillance, according to the results of an academic study.
The study, conducted by a University of Hong Kong researcher and completed last year, investigated 43 public spaces owned and managed by property developers, including prime sites like Times Square in Causeway Bay and Grand Millennium Plaza and The Center in Central.
The seven-year study found that 74 per cent of the sites did not display notices saying it was an open space, as required under Buildings Department regulations. Only 60 per cent were open 24 hours a day, and 65 per cent had CCTV surveillance systems installed. Fifty-eight per cent of the sites had no greenery, only nine per cent had artworks installed and 19 per cent had water features.
Meanwhile, 19 per cent of the public spaces were partly occupied by outdoor restaurants or cafes. Most of the public spaces did not provide proper seating - only 35 per cent had seating on the ledges surrounding its planted borders, and only 14 per cent had actual benches.
One of the key examples studied was Times Square in Causeway Bay, which the study found did not allow sitting in its open piazza when it was opened in 1989. Five railings were installed for seating in 2003 and in the past month, after the public controversy, a few benches have been installed.
The author of the paper, Dr Ken Too Wing-tak, interviewed Wharf, the developer of Times Square, in 2003 and asked why no seating was installed. He was told that no sitting was allowed in the open space because the image of the development would deteriorate if people gathered there. Leung Kam-cheung, who was then Wharf Estates China's chief operating officer, and Roger Ma Yuk-pui, the company's chief manager of property development at the time, told Dr Too they did not want to see people sitting in the open space all day long, like they did in the nearby sitting area under the fly-over in Canal Street.