City urged to look at big picture in redevelopment of slum areas

It is high time the city ditched its "piecemeal" way of revitalising old areas and focused on the big picture by identifying urban slums for redevelopment, a veteran surveyor says.

The Urban Renewal Authority's practice of sprucing up old Hong Kong building-by-building was singled out by Daniel Lam Chun in his new role leading the body's review of its redevelopment model.

Lam, however, acknowledged that a more visionary approach to renewal would require greater financial and policy commitments from the government - especially after the URA ran up a HK$2.3 billion deficit in the 2013/14 financial year.

He pointed to urban slums in Tai Kok Tsui, Sham Shui Po, Shau Kei Wan and Chai Wan, where residential areas were characterised by dilapidated buildings, serious traffic problems, insufficient community facilities and a substandard living environment.

"What the authority should do is 'urban renewal', not 'building renewal'," Lam, also a member of the URA board, told the South China Morning Post.

"But we can only do the latter, given what the government has committed financially. It is a piecemeal approach and offers no planning gains."

Lam was shedding light on how his steering committee, set up last month, would re-examine renewal schemes and the financial sustainability of the URA, which runs on a one-off government injection of HK$10 billion granted in 2002.