Residents welcome URA plan to rip down Sham Shui Po block
Urban Renewal Authority will move tenants to public housing if eligible, or compensate them, to make way for a new 25-storey development
A crumbling, heavily subdivided corner block in Sham Shui Po, built more than 50 years ago, will be replaced with a 25-storey development by 2021 under plans announced by the Urban Renewal Authority yesterday.
The proposal was welcomed by residents of the block on the corner of Tonkin and Fuk Wing Streets, who said the environment was "terrible".
It will be the authority's 15th project in the district, one of Hong Kong's most decrepit.
"It's an old building. It's time for it to be taken down," said Cheng Lung-ming, 70, who has lived in the same subdivided flat at 38 Tonkin Street for 20 years and applied for public housing just a few days ago. "I live alone, so it doesn't matter too much where I go. Of course, it would be best to stay [in Sham Shui Po]."
It's an old building. It's time for it to be taken down
Another tenant of a subdivided flat, Lau Kai-hiu, 57, welcomed the move, as long as he could get public housing. Lau had a stroke a few years ago, so using the stairs of his decrepit building has become difficult.