The Urban Renewal Authority (URA) redevelopment of Kwun Tong is set to take place in the town center and on Yuet Wah Street. Spanning five hectares, the project has been divided into five phases, scheduled for completion by 2021 (see here). The most questionable part of these plans is the glass domed government complex and the 63-storey office tower, the height of which was lowered from 280 meters to 260 meters to comply with Town Planning Board guidelines. Residents will be relocated to make way for the structures, and property acquisition for the first phase commenced at the end of last year, with the URA offering almost $6,000 per square foot to compensate property owners.
It is estimated that the entire buy-out will cost $14 billion dollars, affecting over 5,000 people in 1,600 households.
“We’re not against redevelopment, but we’re against redeveloping Kwun Tong in a way that will wipe out its heritage,“ says Yuen Chi-yan, a one-time Kwun Tong resident and contributor to kwuntong.wordpress.com, a website dedicated to airing the concerns of the local community. “The government says the dome will become the future landmark of Kwun Tong, but it doesn’t relate in any way to what’s in the community now.”
Wong Kwok-hing, the East Kowloon legislator for the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions expresses concern about the fate of low-income residents once their homes are demolished. “Sure, the owners will be able to claim compensation, but what about the tenants?” Even if their homes are not demolished, they may still find themselves priced out of the area. “Rents will go up when the town center is redeveloped. Will they be able to afford to live here?” he asks.
Nicole Chabot is one woman who has studied Kwun Tong in depth. She is the author of “Essays on Kwun Tong,” a book that studies three areas of interest in the district, including food (the alley famous for beef brisket noodles next to the Yue Man Square Park in the town centre), shopping (the APM Mall) and art (the Osage gallery in Kwun Tong Industrial Area). Through her observations, she has come to appreciate the old-fashioned soul of the district. “The local character of specialist shops, hawkers stalls and hand-painted signs all call to mind Hong Kong in earlier times,” she says.
With these developments in the offing, she fears that the Kwun Tong way of life will disappear, and that ”local character will be usurped by shiny structures that represent conventional and extremely narrow ideals of how people ought to live their lives.” She adds that a perfect example of this is the APM shopping mall, which locals have no use for. “The outdoor shopping markets in areas such as Shui Wo Street serve different purposes. They have a social function and can bring people together to interact with their surroundings,” she says. “It’s really a very bad thing to spend too much time indoors, in an air-conditioned environment.”