Anglican church defends high-rise hospital plan for heritage site in historic heart of Hong Kong

A controversial plan by the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui – the city’s Anglican church – to build a 25-storey private hospital in the grounds of its historic Bishop’s House compound in Central district has raised suspicions the church is more interested in real estate than religion.

The Bishop’s House compound, on Lower Albert Road, is a feature of the city’s Central and Western Heritage Trail, and critics say plans for a high-rise at the site are unacceptable.

The Sheng Kung Hui has been an integral part of the Hong Kong establishment for 170 years. The Reverend Vincent Stanton was appointed Colonial Chaplain in 1843; it founded St John’s Cathedral in 1849; and the church opened a school, St Paul’s College, in 1851.

With about 40,000 followers, the church is powerful and well connected. It is the only body in Hong Kong other than the government that owns land on a freehold rather than a leasehold basis – at St John’s Cathedral. The Bishop’s House site is held under a 999-year lease granted by Britain’s Queen Victoria in 1853.

According to the church, it administers 133 Anglican schools and is the third-largest provider of social welfare services in Hong Kong. Its critics, however, argue that at the heart of its operations is real estate.

The plan for a high-rise hospital was revealed in February 2017, more than four years after the church forced the closure on the same site of the seven-storey Hong Kong Central Hospital in September 2012. Residents of two adjacent residential blocks, Ridley House and Alford House, among them many church employees, were evicted and these buildings have also remained empty.