Saving SoHo

Since the development of the Mid-Levels escalator in 1993, SoHo has gradually transformed from a sleepy neighborhood of Chinese tenement houses to a popular place for urban professional types to live and dine in—and a hot piece of real estate to boot. Yes, thanks to the hoards of tapas-munchers and wine-swillers that descend on the area every night of the week, restaurants and bars clamor to occupy the high-rent shop fronts. So naturally, SoHo has drawn the attention of property developers who see the area’s charm as a USP for buyers of their new high-rise developments. What they fail to see, however, is that this character they hope to use to market their properties is fragile, and will almost certainly be destroyed if rampant, insensitive redevelopment continues unchecked.

The destruction of SoHo began back in 2007 when the Urban Renewal Authority called time on the 150-year-old Peel and Graham Street Market located just down the road, which is soon to be demolished to make way for residential towers, office blocks and a boutique hotel. Another URA project referred to as “H19” threatens to demolish recently renovated tenement houses at 60-66 Staunton Street to make way for a 30-storey tower. The URA will also demolish a row of traditional tenement houses on neighboring Wing Lee Street (save for two houses at the end of the row as a token gesture toward preservation) to make way for a new development project. The H19 plan also includes a 30-storey residential building on the corner of Aberdeen and Staunton streets, and to cap it all off, Sino Hotels has also applied to the Town Planning Board to build a 30-storey boutique hotel at 20-26 Staunton Street.

“SoHo has no protection at all,” says conservationist Katty Law of the Central and Western Concern Group. “It’s very vulnerable, especially now that the Development Bureau is planning to lower the compulsory threshold for property takeovers from 90 percent to 80 percent,” Law explains. “This means that developers only need to get 80 percent of the property owners to agree to sell off their building for it to become mandatory for all owners.” Law is concerned that property developers will have their eye on buying up many low rises in the surrounding area to develop whatever they like, as tall as they like, unless measures are put in place to stop them. “Especially now that the property market is starting to recover, you can see that the ambience and atmosphere of the area may soon be eaten away,” she says.

SoHo entrepreneur and restaurateur Simon Squibb understands that some dilapidated buildings need revitalization, but wholesale demolition is not the way forward. “These development projects need to be more sensitive, because if the local community rejects the changes, businesses will suffer, and this will ultimately kill the area,” he says. “What developers need to do is engage with the community and open up lines of communication, so that a consensus can be reached without people getting frustrated.”
In a bid to protect the area from further redevelopment, a group of lobbyists including Law submitted a proposal to the Town Planning Board for a new Outline Zoning Plan (OZP) coded “Y/H3/3.” It suggested reclassifying the 4.7 square kilometer area stretching from Wellington Street to Caine Road a “Special Design Area,” which would cap the heights for new developments at 12 storeys, preserve the Graham and Peel Street Market as a “market street” and ensure that any development in the area remains appropriate for its surroundings. The Town Planning Board ultimately rejected the proposal, despite 383 out of 493 comments from the public supporting the application. As an explanation, the minutes of the hearing state: “[the zoning plan] would have significant implications on private development rights within the site.” Law criticizes the government for lacking vision. “Of course if you impose a planning restriction, then there will be objections from some developers and property owners, but you have to have the vision to see that appropriate protection is in the public’s best interests.”

Were the conservationists working to protect SoHo surprised that their application was rejected? Not particularly, says John Batten, also of the Central and Western Concern Group, which helped to drum up public awareness and support for the plan. “The Outline Zoning Plan was quite radical in a sense that we requested that an entire area be treated as a special heritage zone.” However, both Batten and planning consultant Ian Brownlee of Masterplan, who drafted the OZP, consider the hearing a step in the right direction. “Although they rejected the proposal in the end, we were happy that they really listened to us and talked it over, rather than just rubberstamping a ‘no,’” says Batten. “The government is starting to impose height restrictions in every district in Hong Kong,” adds Brownlee. “The Town Planning Board will be looking at Sheung Wan and SoHo soon, and it’s our hope that some of the ideas put forward at the hearing will be picked up by the government afterwards.”

One positive outcome of the hearing was that the Town Planning Board did recognize a need to impose some kind of measures to prevent unchecked redevelopment in the SoHo area. “I think what we presented was very thought-provoking for the board,” says Brownlee. Batten is also cautiously optimistic, adding, “There seems to have been a big change in attitude—the board made a lot of comments about the need to preserve the old city, but this kind of zoning concept is really beyond their scope. It needs to go back to the Development Bureau for them to make the zoning decision.”